


devils don't fly

by Smudge



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M, Idiots in lust, Meant To Be, and then love, betty is also smitten, but also the gods, do NOT tell them i said that, jughead is literally all in, supernatural bughead au, the boy could not be more smitten, the idea of fate, there will be smut because i'll use any reason to be back on my bullshit, vampire betty, vampire typical violence, who might be dicks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-14
Updated: 2019-07-11
Packaged: 2020-05-07 20:19:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 27,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19216795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Smudge/pseuds/Smudge
Summary: “Oh,” he said, gesturing to her, “so you’re a liar. I see.”“Better than a stalker.”“I was not-” He took a step closer to her, ignoring her glare. “-stalking you. You did something to my friend-”Betty leaned up into him, meeting his eyes as her nostrils flared slightly. “That’s not it.” She pushed him back into the wall again, her hands gripping his jaw to make him look directly at her. “You, Jughead Jones, are the liar, aren’t you? You don’t smell mad or concerned at all, did you know that?”“How do you know my last name?”Betty stepped back, patting his cheek before she turned around to leave him standing there. “I’m a better stalker than you, I guess.”Or, Jughead knows something's not quite right about Betty and he's not going to rest until he figures it out.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Well hello there. It's me again. 
> 
> Anyway, welcome to my new fic, it won't be too long but I've had this idea for months and I'm glad it's finally being realized into fic. Also, I owe a fuck-ton of gratitude to Maria, no one wanted to see this chapter before she got hold of it. So thank you, Maria, and Oscar sends his love. 
> 
> Top notes on the first chapter to avoid story notes as well so here's my besos to you! You guys are the best readers and your comments are the best there is. I'll fight anyone who disagrees. Mmhmm. You're just the best, truly. 
> 
> As always, you can [tumble](https://thetaoofbetty.tumblr.com/) with me if you want.

_Betty was about two seconds from rolling her eyes at the dude-bro in front of her but instead she plastered on a smile and let a giggle loose as she leaned into him, trailing her fingers up his arm, biting her lip. As she stared up at him through her lashes, she fought back the bloodlust she’d swallowed the entire day, knowing that the worst of the worst frat house on campus was going to be having a party that night._

_Idiots ripe for the picking. She didn’t even have to try at most of these parties._

_“So, you wanna get out of here?” the moron frat boy asked, leaning down into her, caging her against the wall._

_Stopping herself from recoiling, she smiled brightly and nodded. Taking his hand, she let him lead her up the stairs, playing coy until he closed the door behind himself in an empty bedroom._

_As soon as he’d gotten his hands on her hips, she pushed him up against the closed door forcefully, holding him in place._

_“If you want control, all you need to do is ask,” he said, trying to run his hands through her hair._

You’d think men would have somehow evolved over the last seventy years or so, _she thought with irritation._

_Right before he was about to say something else, she pounced, latching onto his neck, much to his surprise._

 

* * *

 

She leaned up against the wall, scanning the crowd at another Friday night party. On the hunt for an easy meal, she spotted a tall redhead trying to flirt with a beautiful brunette, and by her demeanor, he wasn’t doing the worst she’d ever seen. His overly observant friend had disappeared, she noted, giving her the opening she’d been looking for.

Eyes on her new target, she made her way to him after straightening her skirt and running her hands through her hair. One “accidental” bump later, with the unfortunate effect of knocking the redhead’s drink onto the brunette who’d stormed away in annoyance, she was talking to him, running her fingers along his arm as she looked up at him with big eyes.

“What’s your name?” he asked with an affable smile, the kind that said he’d be up for anything.

“What do you want it to be?” she responded, holding eye contact.

A laugh. “I want it to be yours. Mine’s Archie.”

“Nice to meet you, Archie,” she said, fiddling with the bracelet around her wrist. “My name’s Betty.”

“That’s a pretty name.” He leaned down into her personal space, pupils dilating.

“Thank you,” she murmured, eyes still on his. “Do you want to get out of here?”

The tell-tale dazed expression she’d been looking for crossed his face as he nodded, letting her lead him out of the party and down into the basement she’d already scoped out earlier.

With the door shut behind her, she took Archie’s hand with a smirk before pushing him up against the wall, almost jerking him out of the trance-like state she’d been working hard to maintain.

“None of that now,” she purred, running her hands up to his shoulders. “Hold still, Archie, for just a minute, and you can go back and find that pretty girl you were so interested in-”

The creak of the door cut her off, a hiss of irritation escaping.

“Stay silent,” she whispered, her voice soothing even as  she maintained eye contact with him.

“Arch?” a voice called, steps pounding up  the stairs. She pushed Archie back further from sight. “Are you in here?”

“Shh,” Betty told Archie, her finger over his lips while he looked down at her in confusion.

The steps grew closer and louder as she tried to come up with a new plan for when she would inevitably get caught.

“Archie-” Whoever the male was sounded shocked by what he was seeing even as he ignored her presence. “-what is this?”

“Can I help you?” Betty asked as she turned around and leaned against Archie, keeping him in place. She recognized his friend from earlier.

The guy’s expression went wide, eyebrows raised as he looked to the side. “Uh-”

“Hey, Jug,” Archie piped up, making Betty want to scream in frustration.

She’d already spent too long trying to find someone that night and now it looked like she was going to have to start completely over. “Who’s your friend, Archie?”

“That’s Jughead. Jughead, this is-” Archie sounded confused and surprised at the same time. “This is -uh-”

“Betty,” she supplied, sticking her hand out to Jughead, trying to make eye contact, something he seemed to be avoiding after having caught her with his friend.

“Yeah, hey,” Jughead said, taking her hand in his. Betty could hear the slight hitch of his breath and the increase of his heart rate. “Good to meet you.”

“Likewise.”

She let her fingers trail against his palm before her hand slipped from his, hoping he would look directly at her. When he finally did, she grinned inwardly.

“Have we met before?”

Keeping a sly smirk to mask her confusion, she shrugged. “Oh, I’d remember you if we had.”

Jughead flushed. “Are you sure?”

“Definitely,” she said lowly, taking a step closer to him.

Narrowed eyes took her in from head to toe, making her feel naked in his gaze. Clear eyes, though. There was nothing clouded in them as she tilted her head, concentrating on keeping her eyes locked on his.

Nothing.

Trying not to let her lost meal make her reckless, she stepped around him, her hand brushing against his. “I’ll see you around, Archie. You too, Jughead.”

She rushed up the stairs, taking a fast left to the easiest route out of the house in order to get her bearings. Thinking as she paced under the edge of the trees lining the sidewalk in the darkest part of the street, she didn’t know what to think about Jughead or why he’d not responded to her.

They _always_ responded to her.

Men. The easiest prey known to womankind and vampires alike. Often egotistical. Gullible. Eager to prove themselves.

Briefly, she wondered if he was something else on his own but she didn’t even know enough about her own kind to know what he could be, if he were anything. Already having observed him earlier, she’d discarded him as a potential meal --he was too aware. Too smart.

The smart ones don’t leave their backs open to be watched. He’d been on the perimeter of the room with Archie, nursing a drink for over an hour and watching people more than actually socializing. Had she not been hiding she had no doubt he would have noticed her, pegging her for the predator she was.

Not in the way he would probably assume, no, but she was a predator just the same.

Betty played with the bracelet on her wrist again, a habit of comfort developed after such a long time pretending to be human.

She would have liked to know him in another life, she thought, with what could almost be a wistful glance back at the house, waiting for Archie and Jughead to leave before she pretended not to notice which way they went, scanning the street once more.

It took less than a minute for her to catch sight of someone walking down the street, paying attention to his phone only. She walked quickly to his side, bumping him with her arm.

“Oh I’m so sorry!” she exclaimed, her hand dropping on his arm as he turned to look down at her.

“It’s alright,” he said, making eye contact.

“Walking this way?”

“Yeah,” he answered, pupils already dilating.

She smiled and gestured down the dark and deserted street. “Shall we?”

 

* * *

 

“Archie, what were you thinking, blowing off Val like that after following her around like a puppy for weeks?” Jughead asked, staring hard at his friend as he tossed his keys and hat onto the coffee table in their apartment.

The drive back had been tense, with Archie staring off into space and ignoring everything around him. He seemed to have snapped out of it by the time they got to their place but it had only increased Jughead’s annoyance.

“I don’t know what happened,” Archie said, confused. “I don’t know her.”

“Obviously,” Jughead snorted, running a hand through his hair. “Val’s pissed man, she almost kicked me on the way out of the party -you might want to try and fix that soon.”

Archie sat on the sofa, looking crestfallen. “Did she say anything?”

“Aside from telling me to find my man-whore best friend before he caught ‘sorority syphilis’?”

“Yeah.”

“Nope,” Jughead informed him, sitting next to him as he kicked his feet up and put them on the table. “Good luck, man.”

“Jug,” Archie said, turning to him with a serious expression, “I don’t mean I don’t know what happened because I got distracted by a pretty girl-”

“Way out of your league, let’s be real,” Jughead interrupted, remembering her bright green eyes and the soft golden glow of her skin.

“Whatever. I mean, I honestly don’t know what happened, I only remember talking to Val and then being in the basement with you.”

Jughead sits up with a hard stare at Archie. “What?”

“It’s like a blank spot, it’s just, I don’t know, fuzzy or something.”

“Fuzzy.” It’s not a question so much as a statement. Archie was a lot of things but a liar wasn’t one of them. And when he tried, he was often terrible at it.

“Like when you’re almost asleep and you don’t know if you’re awake or not?”

“Do you think she drugged your drink or something?”

Archie shook his head. “Wouldn’t I still be, I dunno, groggy or something?”

Jughead furrowed his brows in concentration. “Maybe. Do you remember anything at all?”

“Not really, I don’t even think I know what she looked like.”

“Aside from pretty.”

Archie nodded. “But even then, I’m not sure what she actually looks like-”

“You missed out, then, Arch,” Jughead interjected.

“It doesn’t even matter, man, you know I’m into Val.”

“Better tell her that.”

With a heavy sigh, Archie slid back into the cushions as if he was willing them to swallow them whole. “She’s never gonna talk to me again.”

“Sure she will,” Jughead soothed and settled a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Maybe just to tell you to fuck off, though.”

Archie groaned in frustration.

“We should try and track her down,” Jughead suggested, elbows on his knees as he leaned forward. “Get some answers.”

“You just want to see her again,” Archie accused with a glare. “I may not remember everything but I remember you drooling over her.”

Lips pressed together, Jughead took a deep breath. “I feel like I know her, man. It was like deja vu.”

Archie snorted. “You just like blondes.”

Jughead rolled his eyes but stayed silent. He did like blondes, always had. It should bother him that he found her pressed up against his best friend but it didn’t. It should bother him that Archie couldn’t remember anything but even that bothered him less than the bone deep feeling that he _knew_ her.

If he’d seen her before, he would remember. Unless he also encountered her and can’t remember? Fingers twitching, he knew then what he had to do.

First, research any drugs with a short term memory loss effect easily consumed in a drink.

Second, he needed to find her again.

 

* * *

 

Betty wiped her mouth as she released the guy, who had the unfortunate luck to be named Dray, relaxing him back onto the soft sofa under them so she could let go of him without him hurting himself.

“Thanks, Dray,” she said sweetly, patting his cheek.

“No problem,” he answered with a far-off look.

She never left them completely vulnerable but she always took off before they came back to themselves completely. Making sure he was mostly fine before leaving, she locked the door behind herself and set off, feeling better than she had in days.

It was something she had learned early on, more blood meant more energy. She’d had a learning curve, sure, but she guessed that was what happened when you’d spent the last seventy or so years by yourself. She stopped and looked up at the night sky, wishing she had all the answers but only having what she’d discovered for herself.

Don’t kill your meals, as that meant no leftovers.

Don’t spend more than a few years in one place, people get suspicious of the things they can’t explain.

Don’t make friends.

The last one hurt her the most, she’d decided, as she wandered down the deserted street. She fingered her bracelet once more, the only thing she knew for sure that was hers, the only thing she remembered from when she’d woken up, no memories and a bloodlust that had taken over her body.

It was new then. Shiny and perfect except for the bloodstains in the delicate gold chain wrapped around her wrist. Her clothes had been bloodied as well, but she’d had no memory of what had happened or who she was.

A mystery she figured she had several lifetimes to figure out if her lack of aging was anything to go by.

Kicking her foot up, she twirled in the street with a smile, the blood coursing through her making her feel more alive. If she pretended hard enough sometimes, she thought it might be what humans felt like all the time.

“Hey, pretty girl,” someone called out to her, stopping her fun, “what are you doing out here so late and all alone?”

She raised her eyebrows at the hooded male figure she could clearly see in the shadows. “What does it look like?”

“Looking for me, maybe?”

Betty pursed her lips, considering him, before shrugging. “I doubt it.”

Hand over his heart, he gave her a look of faux hurt as he moved closer to the light. “You know it’s dangerous after dark out here for such beautiful girls.”

“Are you going to save me from the things that go bump in the night?”

“I could,” he said, reaching to push her hair off her shoulder.

Before he could, she caught his hand, bending it back until his eyes widened in pain. “I’m good, thanks.”

The sound of his increased heart rate thudded in her ears, the smell of his fear making her own eyes dilate.

“Or maybe I _was_ looking for you?” she asked and squeezed his hand a little harder, forcing him to take a step back. “A little extra won’t hurt me.”

 

* * *

 

“It’s been a week,” Archie told him with a sigh, falling back onto the bed while he waited for Jughead to get off his computer.

“I know, and yet-”

“Yet you’re no further than you were before, only now you’re way more obsessed than before. I think it’s gotten worse than that weird game you played in high school.”

“I thought we agreed never to speak of that again.”

Archie laughed. “Only because I was worried if I ever mentioned it, you’d start playing it again.”

“It was fun,” Jughead mused offhandedly, squinting at his computer screen.

“No it wasn’t,” Archie argued. “Can we go now?”

“Just a minute,” Jughead replied, focused on the screen, “I can’t find anything that she could have drugged you with, which is good-”

“Yeah, because you have a big fat crush on her-”

“I think she’s attractive, yes,” Jughead cut in, his fingers flying faster over the keyboard, “but I think there’s something else-”

“Don’t go all conspiracy theory on me, Jug.”

“Conspiracy theory?”

“Like the time when we were ten and you were convinced the moon landing was fake.”

“Hey, it could have been!” he defended before whispering under his breath, “Still could be.”

“Nope, you’ve gone too far, we’re going,” Archie said as he got up and shut the laptop on Jughead’s fingers.

“Dude, you don’t touch a man’s computer.”

“You wanted to go to this party, remember that, to try and find this Betty girl.”

“Fine, fine. Okay.” Jughead stood and reached for his jacket, putting it on before readjusting the hat on his head. “Let’s go."

 

* * *

 

“See? These parties can be fun,” Archie said as he gestured to the crowd around him dancing.

“Hmm,” Jughead hummed out, trying to find the blonde hair that had haunted him for the last week. “Sure, Arch.”

“You’re not even listening.”

“I’m thirsty, you want something to drink?”

“Jug.” Archie hit his arm with something, causing him to glance down and see the almost full cup in his hand.

“Oh. Well, I’m going to go get something. Do you think you’ll be safe until I get back?”

He ignored the insulted scoff in his direction and headed to the kitchen where he’d seen the drinks when he and Archie had arrived, taking one from the overly enthusiastic girl giving them out.

Three blondes passed him on his way, none of them catching his eye as a possibility. A sigh escaped him as he relaxed against a wall for a moment, taking a sip of the drink he’d been handed.

Within moments, he felt the burn of a stare and looked up, catching green eyes as they bored into him. He blinked and they were gone. Standing up straight, he looked in every direction, trying to find her.

He could have sworn he’d seen her.

With a shake of his head, he snapped himself out of it and started to make his way back to Archie, when he was pulled into a dim hallway.

“What are you doing?” a voice asked in an angry hiss.

“What?” Confused, Jughead looked down into bright green eyes. Eyes he’d looked for over and over again over the last week. At parties, on campus. In the coffee shop and the library. Everywhere.

“You know something, don’t you?” Betty cocked her head, fingers gripping him even tighter. “What are you?”

“Me?”

“Yes, you. It’s not the same with you.”

“Not the same?”

“Push me away.”

“You want me to push you?” Jughead asked, taken aback. “I don’t want to hurt you-”

“That’s just it, isn’t it?” Betty whispered to him, looking both ways before leaning closer to him, her eyes catching his in the dimly lit hallway. “Nothing works with you. So what are you? You look human-”

“Thank you?”

“So, push me.”

Jughead couldn’t keep up with what she was saying but he tried to break her grip on him, gently. When her hands popped off of him, she hissed at him again. Touching her skin once more had given him the same sense of deja vu he’d had before but he couldn’t linger on it because she took a step back, a finger pointed at him.

“You should not be able to do that.” She stepped closer again, her nose brushing his neck. “You smell different. Not like everyone else but also just like everyone else.”

“I’m confused, are you insulting me or not?”

“I don’t know,” Betty said, arms crossed as she considered him. “Why are you psuedo-stalking me?”

“Stalking? That’s a little harsh, don’t you think?”

“Is it?”

Jughead winced at the memories of the last week but went on the defensive. “You did something to my friend-”

She laughed, stopping him. “I really didn’t.”

“He doesn’t even remember meeting you but you had him alone, looking like you were going to jump him. That’s pretty concerning, don’t you think?”

“I wasn’t going to jump him,” she scoffed, shaking her head at the idea of it.

“Then what were you doing?”

“Nothing,” she answered innocently with a shrug.

“Oh,” he said, gesturing to her, “so you’re a liar. I see.”

“Better than a stalker.”

“I was not-” He took a step closer to her, ignoring her glare. “-stalking you. You did something to my friend-”

Betty leaned up into him, meeting his eyes as her nostrils flared slightly. “That’s not it.” She pushed him back into the wall again, her hands gripping his jaw to make him look directly at her. “You, Jughead Jones, are the liar, aren’t you? You don’t smell mad or concerned at all, did you know that?”

“How do you know my last name?”

Betty stepped back, patting his cheek before she turned around to leave him standing there. “I’m a better stalker than you, I guess.”

 

* * *

 

That night, Jughead dove deeper than he had before into his internet searches, but to no avail. At one in the morning, he’d slammed the laptop shut, running both hands through his hair in frustration when the book he’d read numerous times in high school caught his attention.

 **_In Cold Blood_ ** stared at him from the shelf across from his desk. The small piece of old newspaper peeking out of the pages jogged his memory and he almost stumbled rushing towards it, grabbing it out of the book and taking it in.

Hand over his mouth, he remembered why she looked familiar to him. He’d stared at the picture for months when he was sixteen after coming across the files of the most infamous case in Riverdale to ever go cold.

**Prom Night Tragedy Case Remains Unsolved, Elizabeth Cooper Still Missing**

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we go some more, friends! 
> 
> Enjoy!
> 
> ...Or else. 
> 
> I didn't mean that, I apologize. I love you all. Immensely.

Jughead was on his fourth cup of coffee when he decided he wasn’t going to get any further -not into the cold case, not into where Betty might be. He’d discovered she wasn’t  a college student but she’d been spotted at parties constantly. 

No one could tell him anything about her, even if they might have talked to her. Everyone he’d spoken to had vague memories at best and they all had one thing in common; they were men. 

The effort it took not to dwell on that was almost beyond his capabilities, if he were honest. He sighed in defeat. He wasn’t going to get any further that night, he was certain. Slinging the strap of his bag over his shoulder as he left the coffee shop he’d been sitting in, a tactic he’d used over the last few days to avoid Archie knowing what he was getting up to, he kept his head down while heading back to his apartment. 

Less than a block before reaching his place, he was startled by the low whispered conversation floating from the alley he was walking past. Interest peaked, he headed towards it, even as he knew it was a bad idea. It was like he had no control over his own footsteps. 

He walked up behind what he could now see was a couple, a woman with painfully familiar blonde hair and what appeared to be another random guy of little consequence. 

To say that the jealousy that reared up in him made no sense would have been an understatement. Clenched fists and a deep breath kept him from pulling her off of whoever she was wrapped around, but he had no success in stopping the biting words that spilled out of him without his permission. 

“You really do like getting men alone in the dark,  don’t you?” 

Betty slowly peeled herself off the guy, her head falling as she turned to him. “Must you be here right now?” 

“Apparently.” 

“Are you trying to annoy me?” 

“Not really, no,” he said, shrugging in the dark. “I’m more interested in what you’re doing to all the men on campus-” 

“Oh,” she started as she walked closer to him, the guy behind her forgotten, “I see. Jealous, are we?” 

“No,” he denied quickly while he adjusted the strap on his bag. “Of course not. Either you’re a criminal or-” 

“Or what?” she asked, walking her fingers up his chest before she flicked him softly in the chin with a smile. 

Jughead swallowed heavily. “Something else.” 

“What would I be, Jughead Jones? I know who you are: roommate of Archie Andrews, college junior, part time fiction writer, true crime enthusiast, and seriously jealous boy by the smell of you, so, tell me, what am I?” 

Narrowed eyes caught hers. “Humans can’t smell emotions.” 

With her hands held out to the sides, she gave him a placating look. “I never said I was human.”

Distracted by movement behind her, he looked over her shoulder, watching the guy she’d been with start to come to his senses. Jughead noticed he looked young enough to be right off the campus and he jerked his chin is his direction, causing Betty to raise her eyebrow at him and shrug in disinterest. 

“I’m guessing he won’t remember this either, like the others?” 

The coy smile she sent his way made chills run up his spine. 

“Good guess.” 

“Hey,” the guy said, his voice unsure, “where am I?” 

“In an alley, Chad,” Betty deadpanned. “You can go now.” 

“Yeah, sure,” Chad agreed, stumbling out of the alley, leaving them alone. 

Jughead took her in completely, from the golden blonde waves that caressed her shoulders to the dark jeans hugging her thighs. She was definitely beautiful, but he’d come to the conclusion that she wasn’t getting those guys alone because of her looks, though he thought she could if she really wanted to. 

“I heard you, you know,” she told him, smiling widely. 

“Yet you didn’t stop?” 

“Why would I?” Betty said, her head tilted in confusion. “You were always going to find me again, weren’t you?” 

“That was my goal.” 

“I know. You see, I think I might be better at investigating than you are.”

Jughead’s eyes went wide at the pride he heard in her voice. “Is that right?” 

Betty looked at him with vague indifference. “I’ve been looking for a new hobby.” 

He’d almost jumped when she reached for the bag on his shoulder, feeling it slip down his arm and onto the asphalt before she stepped even closer to him. 

“I think,” she continued, “there’s something off about you-”

“Me?” he interrupted, incredulous at her continued accusations. “You keep saying that-” 

“Yes,” she informed him plainly, “I do. You’re different and I need to know why.”

“How are you going to figure it out?” 

“Simple.” She pulled herself up to him, holding onto his shoulders while she seemed to breathe him in. “I’m going to see how you taste, Jughead.” 

He should have pushed her off. 

He didn’t even try. 

He felt her fingers as they dug into his shoulders to hold him still, the soft kiss of her lips against his neck a split second before the sharp bite of her teeth into his skin. She held him in place when he jerked in surprise, the moan of pleasure that escaped her startling him into setting his hands on her hips. 

With her arms wrapped around his neck, he was pulled out of his thoughts when he realized she was sucking on his skin. With no idea how long he’d be standing there, letting her -do what, exactly? Give him a huge hickey? He didn’t know, but it felt too good to push her away even when he wasn’t dizzy with pleasure. 

She yanked herself back, wiping her mouth as she looked up at him with huge luminous eyes. Jughead’s brain may have been working at half speed but he knew fear when he saw it and Betty was scared as she stared up at him. 

Without saying a word, she ran away, leaving him alone and confused in the dark alley to do nothing more than lay a hand on the tenderness of his neck, wincing as he pulled his fingers back to see them stained with blood. 

 

* * *

 

Betty had run the entire way back to her own apartment, a small studio she kept by making a monthly visit to the landlord to keep him solidly unaware of her and her presence, before she let herself relax. 

Slamming the door behind her, she threw herself onto her sofa and tried to stay calm after what she’d done and experienced. With eyes closed and head thrown back, she lamented that she had bitten someone who would remember it, something she’d never done before. Torn between packing all of her things and staying to figure out just exactly who Jughead Jones was, she huffed in frustration before telling herself to get a grip and grabbing the old texts she’d found over the years. 

She’d read them all, of course, but she skimmed them often to see if she missed anything, just in case. Flipping through gave her nothing, as she knew they wouldn’t, but she just kept trying. Her knees pulled to her chest, she sat on the small sofa, thinking about her first memories. 

_ The buzzing in her ears was her first memory, the weird nothingness right before painful hunger struck her, making her weary as she ran. Ran from what, she didn’t know, but she felt the urge to keep going and then go some more. Through trees, grass, over rocks, she didn’t stop until she came across fire and it stopped her cold.  _

_ “Hey, do you need some help?” some man asked her, having stood up next to the fire shocked by her presence. “Miss?”  _

_ Betty looked down at herself, unaware of anything but gnawing hunger and an echoing sense of sorrow for what she had done to the man who’d just wanted to help.  _

_ Within his next breath she was on him, following her instinct to bite. To take the life blood from him to sustain herself. He struggled, she remembered. It made no difference, he was still drained and dead at her feet in the end.  _

_ She felt like she should be horrified by what she’d done but she just kept still as she looked down at herself, unaware of the body cooling on the ground.  _

_ A pink dress.  _

_ Bare feet.  _

_ A delicate and shiny bracelet with blood stuck in the chain wrapped around her wrist.   _

_ She couldn’t remember her name. Where she came from or who she was. How she got where she was or where she should go. Sinking to her knees, she stared at the fire, playing with the bracelet as she decided what her next move should be.  _

_ A shovel caught her eye, the man must have been camping though she was unclear on how she knew what camping was. The same way she didn’t understand how she knew how to drive the car sitting across from the fire.  _

Betty ignored the memories after that one. They proved to do nothing but frustrate her and she never came to any new conclusions. She was a vampire, enough books had told her that. She learned not to kill her food pretty quickly, as people got suspicious when you left a string of bodies in your wake. 

Though she had searched for and rarely found other vampires, they were solitary creatures and often shunned her, especially when they discovered she couldn’t remember her humanity and had no maker to speak of. That made her different even among monsters, and different was a liability to them. They didn’t trust her. 

She’d stopped looking for them after a while, stealing books when she could get her hands on them, learning about herself where she could. It was rare, but as it turned out, she’d had plenty of time on her hands. 

But she had never encountered anyone like Jughead Jones, and his blood thrumming through her veins had been unlike anything else she’d ever felt. She thought it might be like when someone got their favorite foods on the happiest day of their lives. It had shot pleasure down her spine and back up through to her brain, making her dizzy with the intensity of it all. 

The clock on her wall told her it was well past midnight but she couldn’t help herself, she felt an overwhelming need to make sure he was home. She let her head fall back on the sofa as she told herself to stay still, that he was going to be the end of her if she couldn’t stay away from him but it didn’t matter, the urge to check on him was too much to bear. 

Within five minutes, she had run and scaled the side of his building, sitting on a fire escape as she watched him. He was shirtless and staring into the mirror over his bedroom dresser, gently touching the bite mark she’d left on him, the realization plain on his face. 

Betty licked her lips as she looked him over. She’d never much cared for the humans she came across, but she enjoyed the way Jughead looked. It made no sense to her, she’d bitten more attractive men, she was sure, but she enjoyed the view he unknowingly gave her. She only left when he must have felt the heat of her stare, spinning around to check outside of his window. 

Almost desperate to figure it out, she made her way home to read through her books again. 

 

* * *

 

By the time he had gotten his bearings, Betty was long gone and he’d been left all alone in a dark alley to stare dumbly at the blood on his fingers. He grabbed his bag and rushed home, ignoring the fact that he’d interrupted Archie’s date with the new girl he’d started seeing. 

“Jug-” 

“Can’t talk, Arch,” Jughead said, passing them as he hurried through the living room and into his room. 

He released a breath when he got the door locked and closed behind him, slumping against it for a moment before he pulled his laptop out of his bag. Centering himself, he sat back on his bed, in total disbelief of what he was searching for. 

Vampires. 

That’s what she was, he told himself repeatedly. It was unreal. She bit him and drank his blood and he’d only seen her at night. He actually felt a little stupid when he put it all together. 

Then he realized he was talking about the supernatural. Who thought that stuff was really real? 

_ You do, _ a little voice whispered to him as he remembered a childhood full of conspiracies and a love of the idea that things might really go bump in the night. 

A deep web search, past the pop culture idea of vampires, past the books and movies, gave way to lore, confusing information that seemed to contradict itself. Notes written on what to look for, he closed his laptop with a heavy sigh. His neck was still tender to the touch and he realized he’d yet to even look at it. 

He pulled off his shirt, tossing it to the corner of his room as he walked to his dresser, tilting his head to the side as he looked at himself. If it hadn’t happened to him, if he hadn’t seen Archie’s confusion after the party, he would have never believed it. 

The bite was more like pinpricks on his skin, visible but only if you knew what you were looking for. There was purpling around it, as if she had sucked harder than she needed to keep him in place. 

He ignored the invasive thought that all she needed to do was simply ask him for what she wanted, that he already felt incapable of denying her anything she asked for. 

It was a haunting thing, to know something existed that should terrify him but that he still wanted so badly. The fine hairs stood up on the back of his neck and he spun around to look outside of his window. 

Seeing nothing, he shook it off and made his way to the shower instead, making a plan for the next day. Both he and Betty had one thing in common -not knowing why he was immune to whatever it was her abilities were and he wanted answers as much as she did. 

 

* * *

 

Betty had learned long ago the best way to go unnoticed was to walk in a room like it was yours to begin with. People asking questions she couldn’t answer was just a waste of her time these days. Even if it was unlimited. 

As she jogged up the steps to the second floor, she thought she smelled Jughead, his smell already embedded into her but she ignored it, wandering to the back stacks, where she’d figured out she might be able to find some more information. 

She stopped short when she saw him standing there reading the book she’d come for. Shoulders tossed back, she walked up to him, tapping him on the back of the head. 

“Seriously?” she asked, arms crossed as she watched him turn around in surprise. 

“What are you doing here?” 

“Does it matter?” 

Jughead narrowed his eyes at her. “You’re not a student here. And as far as I can you’re not even human.” 

“Is that right?” she asked with feigned ignorance. 

He leaned closer to her, crowding her into the bookshelf at her back. “Don’t play dumb with me, humans don’t bite each other-” 

“What a vanilla life you must lead,” she interrupted with a smirk to cover her discomfort at the idea of him letting anyone else bite him. “Poor little human boy can’t get anyone to-” 

Cut off by the press of his finger against her lips, she snapped at him, trying to bite him, but he was quick as he pulled his hand back, eyes wide. 

“Are you always this defensive?” he asked, caging her with his arms so she couldn’t escape his questions. 

Almost compelled to tell him the truth, she nodded. 

“Why?” 

“Why not?” she shot back. 

He took a deep breath and closed his eyes before they popped open and he looked around. 

“It’s daylight.” 

“Grand observation, Mr. Jones.” 

“If you’re -if you’re, you know,” he said, lowering his voice, “a vampire, isn’t that dangerous?”

Betty smirked at him. “Ooo, someone knows how to google, doesn’t he? Do you believe everything you read? Are you worried about my exposure to garlic, too? Are you dying to ask if I turn into a bat?” 

Jughead took a step back at her flippancy. “What? No, of course not! I mean, mostly.” He looked like he was considering it. “Do you?” 

Her laugh was too loud for the atmosphere and he shushed her, grabbing the book he’d been looking at when she found him.

“Daylight, garlic, bats,” she said, ticking each one off on her fingers, “all myths. I don’t know about holy water though, never really wanted to try that, one to be honest.” 

He nodded at her, bewildered. “What about a stake to the heart?” 

She looked at him as if she was endlessly amused by him. “I think that would kill most things, don’t you?” 

He pursed his lips and nodded. “Okay.” 

“Okay?” 

“Sure. Truth is stranger than fiction, right?”

“That’s what they say.” She went to grab the book from him but he pulled his hand back, holding it over his head. “I need that, Jughead.” 

“So do I.” 

“I’m pretty sure I need it more than you do,” she said while she pulled at his arm ineffectively. 

“Why? Because you want to know why none of your enhanced vamp skills work on me?” 

“Yes,” she hissed, still trying to take the book from him. 

Jughead smiled at her in a way that made her think he found her more endearing than anything else. “You know, that hissing thing you do? It’s probably intimidating to others but to me, it just makes you sound like an angry little kitten.” 

Eyes narrowed, she glared at him for a moment before biting his arm, making him yelp and drop the book. She took it from him and disappeared around the corner, flipping through it as she walked away. 

“Hey!” he called, following her. “Where are you going with that?” 

“I’m taking it, obviously.” 

She could feel him catch up to her, steering her to some chairs tucked into a corner instead of letting her leave with the book. 

“You can’t just take things, you know,” he said once they’d sat and he was reading over her shoulder. 

Betty shrugged her disinterest at his scolding. “Whatever. Go turn me in, then.” 

She felt his sigh on the back of her neck as she read, sending a shiver across her skin. She tried to ignore him after that as she read, hunting for any possible reason she’d been ineffective around him. 

Jughead was growing bored, she could tell, as she read the pages, most of it being things he probably already knew but she knew that information could hide in the most obvious of places. The sun was setting as she came upon one of the last chapters, something must have caught his eye because he stopped her, pointing at the page. 

She gave him a harsh look for interrupting her before she looked down to see what he had been pointing at. 

Eyes wide, she pushed the book at him, refusing to believe what she’d read. She shook her head at him as she started to get up, but he grabbed her wrist to keep her next to him as stared at her, breathing heavy. 

“Let me go, Jughead,” she pleaded while looking for the fastest escape route. 

“Betty, no,” he said as he reached for her other hand to make her look at him. “You can’t run away from everything you don’t like or understand.” 

“Watch me.” 

“Is that why you gave yourself another name?” 

Betty’s confusion was palpable as she focused her gaze on him. “What are you talking about?” 

“Come on,” he murmured in a calming voice, seeing her distress, “I know who you are, Betty-” 

“You do?” 

He nodded, running his thumb over her wrist, sliding it between the chain of her bracelet and skin. “Elizabeth Cooper-” 

She shook her head, as she stood up and stepped back from him. “I don’t know who that is-”

“Betty? It’s short for Elizabeth, you know that,” he said, fingers curled around hers as he stood up next to her. “Don’t you?” 

Overwhelmed, she stared at the ground, fighting the tears that tried to break free. She had been well fed the last few days so the idea that he would see her with red tinged tears running down her face had her ashamed of what she was for the first time in a long time. 

“Betty?” 

He tilted her face up to his, wiping the red streaks off her face without judgment as he looked down at her. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she told him, playing with the chain around her wrist.  

He pulled her hand up to take a closer look at the bracelet he had yet to see her without. “You must have had a family, right? Someone who loved you?” 

She swallowed hard and nodded. “I think someone loved me once. See?” 

Betty twisted her wrist and showed him the engraving on the delicate gold she’d spent the last seventy years wearing. He touched it gently as she read the words silently to herself, the way she had every day for as long as she could remember. 

_ I love you, Betts  _

  
  
  


 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dudes. What just happened? 
> 
> Oh my god, does anyone else's significant other get nervous when you use knives or scissors? The mister acts like I'm going to cut a finger off and he hovers. HOVERS! Just because I open boxes with open scissors by grabbing the blade of them doesn't mean I don't know what I'm doing. 
> 
> I am mostly adult. With all of her fingers. 
> 
> But anyways, who cares about him? Well, me, I suppose but still, this is bigger than me, this is bughead, right? And besos! Besos to you and you and you and all of you! Even if my tumblr exploded and I wanted this up hours ago. Meh, it's fine. We're good. 
> 
> Though I do want to know what you think. Because I love you and respect your opinions. Duh. And also, you're looking really good in that unicorn onesie. 
> 
> (In my head, we're all wearing unicorn onesies, let me have it) 
> 
> As always, you can [tumble](https://thetaoofbetty.tumblr.com/) with me if you want.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> May I present to you over 3k words of bughead just being weirdly flirty? 
> 
> Because that's what you're getting, friends. 
> 
> Read on!

Within seconds of him reading the inscription on her bracelet, Betty had taken off. The book they’d been reading was laying on the ground, open to the chapter that had scared her so badly. He picked it up, reading the first page once more.

The title alone was enough to make his breath catch. **The Fated Lovers** , it had read. Had he not been bitten by a vampire in the last twenty-four hours he would have scoffed and laughed at the mere idea of such a thing.

He slipped the book in his bag and ignored the fact that he was technically stealing. Some books, he decided, didn’t need a paper trail of who had them and when.

 _Betts_ , he thought, chewing on the nickname and how familiar it felt to him in his mind as he walked home. Betty was definitely Elizabeth but she was also Betts to someone as well. The cold case of her disappearance was one he’d gone through as much as he could as a teenager. The files were locked down on a need to know basis. The archives had nothing. He’d found her picture while looking for something else and he hadn’t been able to put it down.

What kind of person would kidnap Elizabeth? Or had she run away from something horrible? It was as if no one knew and no one wanted to think about it. She’d disappeared without a trace and they’d never found any clues other than the shoes she’d been wearing that night, two pink satin high heels that must have matched the dress she wore.

It had been her prom night. No one could recall her date, if she’d had one. Jughead thought she must have had one, no one would let a girl like that go to a dance alone.

Archie had made fun of him for carrying the picture for so long, but he simply didn’t understand what Jughead saw when he looked at it. That girl, Elizabeth, had light in her eyes. Even with the grainy quality of an old newspaper photograph, he could tell she was happy. Her family had run the local newspaper, an odd thing, he’d thought, when he had discovered that there wasn’t much information on her disappearance.

They’d up and left Riverdale not long after, selling the local paper, too. As far as he could tell, no one had ever heard from them again.

The trail had gone cold and he’d run out of avenues to keep looking into it. So, he had tucked her picture in his favorite book at the time, and tried to put her out of his mind.

By the time he made it home, he’d formed a plan to get them both the answers they’d been looking for.

The second he walked through the door, he yelled for Archie.

“What, dude?” Archie yelled back. “I’m busy.”

“Unless you’re wanking it to that movie you think I don’t know about, I can’t imagine what’s more important than what I have to tell you -oh,” he said and stopped short when he saw the brunette Archie had been on a date with the night before. “Hello.”

“Jughead, this is Veronica Lodge,” Archie introduced through gritted teeth. “Ronnie, this is Jughead, my roommate. You saw him last night.”

Veronica took him in, a raised eyebrow as she said, “And he looked thoroughly debauched. It’s nice to meet you when you don’t look like you’re still thinking about having your hands up someone’s skirt.”

Jughead lifted his chin. “I didn’t have my hands up her skirt-”

“You were with a girl last night? Alright, Jug,” Archie interrupted and went in for a high five that Jughead halfheartedly returned. “Nice.”

“Really, Archiekins?”

“Trust me, this is a big deal for him-”

“Archie!” Jughead cut in with a glare. “I was with Betty.”

Archie gave him a smug look. “I knew you had a big fat crush on her, even if she is weird.”

Veronica laughed for a moment before she caught herself and straightened her dress. “Sorry.”

“She’s not-,” he said, moving around Archie to head to his room, “-she’s not weird.”

Archie raised his eyebrows at him but stayed silent.

“Whatever,” Jughead huffed.

He leaned back against the door after he closed it behind him, relaxing for the first time since that morning. He let his bag hit the floor before he saw the figure sitting on his bed.

Jughead jumped and grabbed his chest. “Jesus, Betty! Give me a warning next time, would you?”

Betty looked up at him through sad eyes. “Sorry.”

“Hey,” he said as he walked over to the bed and sat next to her,  wrapping an arm around her shoulder, “it’s okay. This is good, right? Finding out who you are?”

Betty shrugged, laying her head on his arm. “Maybe.”

“I have an idea,” he told her, “but I’m not sure if you’re gonna go for it.”

“If it’s eating Archie because he called me weird, I’m all in.”

He laughed softly and pulled her closer. “We can save that idea for later. You know, there’s a school break next week, right?”

Jughead could feel her nod against his arm.

“So I was thinking, you could come home with me-”

“You don’t go home for school breaks, liar,” she interrupted.

“You really are good at this investigating thing, aren’t you? Should I be concerned and ask how often you’ve been in my room?”

He could almost hear her rolling her eyes at him.

“Get over yourself. It smells like boy all over this apartment, that’s not where I generally choose to spend my time.”

“Boy? I’m insulted.”

“Fine, it smells like gross adult college dudes.”

“Thank you.”

“Go on and finish telling me about whatever plan it is that’s making you nervous,” she said with a gesture for him to continue.

“Not a fan of that skill,” he muttered before he continued, “Anyway, I was thinking you can come home with me and Archie and we can look more into where you came from.”

Betty pulled the picture of herself out of her pocket much to his shock and unfolded it, tracing her fingers over her own face in the photo.

Jughead’s eyebrows shot up. “You’re quite the thief, aren’t you?”

“Yeah,” Betty agreed, still staring at the picture. “I’ve gotten pretty good at it.” She looked up at him with beseeching eyes. “Do you think the fact that we came from the same place can explain what that book said?”

Jughead sighed. “I don’t know, but I hope so.”

“You’re still nervous,” she told him. “Spill.”

His head fell back against the headboard. “Fine. But before I tell you my plan, you need to promise not to kill me and then Archie on your way out, okay?”

“We’ll see.”

“Close enough,” he said and rested his head on top of hers and breathed in deep. “If I take you home with me we’re gonna need a good cover story, and I was thinking we could just tell everyone we’re dating-”

“Like one of those movies!” Betty exclaimed and moved out of his grip, turning to look at him with expectant eyes.

“You’re not mad?”

“Mad? I’ve always wanted to be part of some sort of plot or scheme,” she said excitedly, grabbing his hand to play with his fingers as she waited for him to continue.

It hit him then, how intensely lonely she must have been all those years. He’d gotten the impression she made no friends on purpose, keeping herself solitary to stay under the radar and not bring any attention to herself. He wondered what it was like for her to know that no matter what she did, he would remember her. That every time she looked him in the eye he would remember the color of them and the shape of her face, that she couldn’t _make_ him forget.

“Riverdale is small, Betty,” he warned. “Are you going to have a problem feeding?”

She shook her head. “I can go for a few days, I should be okay.”

“Are you sure? You can always, you know,” he said with a gesture to his own neck, “sample the goods again if you need.”

“The goods? Is that what you’re calling it now?”

Jughead scoffed and gestured to the spot on his neck where she’d bit him. “I have liquid gold running through these veins and don’t you deny it.”

“Whatever. So, how does this work? You’re just going to tell people I’m your girlfriend? What about Archie and his new girlfriend?”

“How did you know about her?”

She tapped her ear. “Not that it would matter, they’re not even trying to pretend they’re not talking about you right now.”

Jughead pulled his head back in offense. “What are they saying?”

“Archie thinks it’s a good thing that you finally found a girl as weird as you and Veronica thinks I probably wear a lot of black.”

He laughed as he looked at her clothes. Aside from her dark blue jeans, she was wearing an ivory sweater with pink socks, her darker clothes seemed to be something she only wore at night. “Where are your shoes?”

Betty pointed to the floor by his window. “It’s rude to put shoes on someone’s bed, right?”

“You’re very polite for someone who broke into my place, you know that?”

Lips pursed, she narrowed her eyes at him. “The window was open, it’s not like it was hard.”

“Sure,” he agreed easily, choosing not to mention the fact that she had to climb about four stories to get all the way up to his bedroom. “And yes, we’ll tell people you’re my girlfriend.”

Betty smiled in the coy way that made his nerves go on alert before she rolled up on her knees and leaned into him with her hands flat on his bed sheets. “Are you going to act like I’m your girlfriend?”

He leaned back, overwhelmed by her. “Is that something you want?”

She stared at his mouth for a moment before sitting back on her knees. “Let me think about it.”

“Sure. But first we should tell Archie you’re coming home with us next week,” he said as he got off the bed, holding a hand out to her to take.

When she took his hand, he felt the same sense of deja vu he always felt when he touched her but he tucked that thought away for later and tugged her behind him, hoping Archie and Veronica were still in the living room where he’d left them.

He felt her hiding behind him when they stopped at the end of the hallway and he coughed to get Archie and Veronica’s attention.

They broke apart, Archie flushed and scrambling for his shirt while Veronica ran her hands over her hair to smooth it back into place. The small giggle he heard from behind him told him she’d known what they were doing before they even left his bedroom and he squeezed her hand in reprimand for not warning him.

“It’s funny and you know it!” Betty whispered.

“Busy, Archie?” he asked and tightened his grip on Betty in case he said something to upset her.

“I was,” Archie replied, running a hand through his hair.

Veronica was staring at his feet, arms crossed as she sat back against the sofa cushions. “Grow some legs?”

“Funny,” he said and pulled Betty from behind him. “Archie, you remember Betty? Betty this is Veronica.”

Betty waved at them both with a small smile. “Hi.”

“How-” Archie asked, his confusion plain, “-what? She wasn’t here earlier.”

“Sure she was,” Jughead said. “Where have you been?”

“See?” Archie whispered to Veronica, “I told you she was weird.”

He felt Betty start to step forward and looked down at her, her teeth bared as she glared at Archie.

“Hey,” he whispered, pulling her into his chest with an arm wrapped around her stomach, “no threatening Archie.”

Veronica was giving them a sidelong glance before she poked Archie’s side. “Shh, Archiekins, don’t be rude.”

Archie sighed. “Fine. What’s up, Jug?”

“I was just going to tell you that Betty is coming home with us next week.”

Gobsmacked, Archie stared at him with an open mouth. “What?”

“Betty,” he said to Archie slowly, “is coming home with us next week.”

“Why?”

“Archie!” Veronica and Jughead exclaimed at the same time.

Jughead rubbed his forehead in frustration. “Because she is, okay?”

Archie nodded, accepting it even as he eyed Betty warily.

“Good.” He leaned down, arm still wrapped around Betty, and whispered, “It’ll be fine, I promise."

 

* * *

 

Betty climbed through his window again a few days later with a bag in her hand before the sun was up. Jughead, still asleep, was sprawled out in his bed, hair fluffed out over the pillow, and she bit back her amusement at how undone he looked.

Climbing onto the bed next to him after she had sat her bag down and kicked off her shoes, she stretched out next to him and wondered what it was like to sleep. He looked so content lying there with an arm tucked under his pillow, laid out on his stomach.

She pulled out the picture she’d taken to carrying around out of her pocket again, looking at it in the fading moonlight of Jughead’s room. The bracelet was visible on her wrist in the picture, blurry with age now, but she’d recognize it anywhere.

Elizabeth, she thought, as the word rolled around her tongue silently. She’d tried it out for the last few days and even went as far to use it on a mark one night. It was not like they’d ever remember her anyway.

She liked it. It was elegant even if she still felt like a Betty deep down.

Pushed out of her thoughts by Jughead moving, she looked over at him and wanted very badly to push the curl off his forehead if for no other reason than to touch him. He made her feel centered, like she could know herself better. That he was immune to her made her feel human.

It was something she’d never been able to feel before.

Jughead could stop her physically if he wanted to, not that she thought he would hurt her. She couldn’t lure him to do what she wanted, if he did it, it was because he wanted to. It was a freeing thought, to know that he was there because he chose to be.

Betty tucked the picture back into her pocket and turned to her side as gently as possible to face him, her arm slipping under the extra pillow where her hand  hit something hard. Pulling it out, she saw it was the book from the library. She glared at the cover.

If that book was right, it meant that they were all beholden to the whims of other powers that be. The ones who got to _decide_ what she was.

She _hated_ that.

Her choices should be her own. Her destiny had been chosen for her, an infinite amount of lifetimes to with what she wished while the man who laid next to her only had the one.  

It felt like a punishment.

Jughead moved again and reached out for her as if he knew she was there. She let him wrap an arm around her and bring her close to him, tucking her head under his chin. The warmth of his skin soothed her as she put her hand on his chest to feel the rhythm thumping on his chest, counting the steady beating of his heart.

“You think very loudly,” Jughead murmured into her hair, his voice still sleepy and slow.

“Diva,” she declared while snuggling further into his embrace.

“Only before sunrise.” He yawned and rubbed his face into her hair. “You’re here early.”

“I had nothing better to do.”

“You could have stayed here if you wanted,” he said, pushing his face further against her.

Betty shook her head. “I needed to eat.”

“Flirting with morons?”

“Easiest food in town.”

Jughead yawned again and pulled her tighter to him as he started to fall back asleep. “Imma tell Archie you said that.”

“Please do.”

The sound of his gentle breathing was all she heard after that, and she laid there watching him until long after the sun came up and his alarm went off.

 

* * *

 

He opened his eyes to her staring and smiling at him. “What a thing to wake up to.”

“Sorry,” she said, looking down. “I could hear you starting to wake up-”

“Hey, don’t be sorry.” He pushed a lock of hair behind her ear. “Seeing you in my bed first thing probably made at least four fantasies I’ve had over the last month come true.”

“Is this part of the fake dating package?”

Jughead groaned. “Can’t you just date me for real? It’d really make all the awkward erections I’m going to get for the next week a lot more bearable.”

Betty laughed and ran her hand through his hair before she pointed to herself. “Vampire.” She pointed to him. “Human.”

With a narrowed gaze, Jughead gestured back and forth between them. “Fated.”

“So you say.”

Incredulous, he sat up, taking the book from her and pointing to the page. “Me? The gods, Betty! The _gods_ say so and I don’t know about you but the gods seem like dicks so we probably shouldn’t piss them off.”

“Are you telling me you believe everything you read?”

“Only when it tells me what I want to hear.”

Her tinkling laughter sent warmth through him. The bright smile she tried to hide when she bit her lip, the smallest hint of a fang peeking out against the pink of her lips. A stark reminder that they weren’t the same, but he couldn’t find it in himself to care.

“What if the person who gave me this is in Riverdale right now?” she asked playfully, jingling her bracelet in his face. “Just think about some poor old man, waiting for me to retu-”

Jughead growled at the thought and threw the book down before tackling her on the bed, his face inches from her as she stared up at him with wide eyes.

“No.”

“No?” she asked, nostrils flared as she breathed him in. “Jealous?”

Jughead sighed and rested his forehead on hers. “Obnoxiously so.”

He pushed himself off of her, holding himself up with his hands placed on the sides of her head and stared at her lips, licking his own before  leaning down to kiss her. Before he could make contact, loud knocking startled him so badly he slipped and fell to the side of her on the bed.

“Jughead!” Archie yelled, thumping the door loudly. “If you’re being gross in there, stop, we need to get going if we want to get a head start.”

“Gross?” he called back with an eye roll as Betty suppressed her laughter.

“Yeah, if Betty is in there or if you’re just yanking it to thoughts of your new weirdo girlfriend.”

“Stop calling her weird!”

“No!”

“I’m up so you can go away now.”

“We’re leaving in thirty minutes,” Archie informed him and Jughead could hear the footsteps walking away.

“You couldn’t have warned me?” he asked Betty, rolling over to look at her.

Her sly look was all he got in response before she climbed over him and started fixing her hair in the mirror above his dresser.

“So you can see yourself in mirrors then?”

She spun around with a glare. “Really?”

“Just asking.”

“ _Can you see yourself in mirrors,_ he asks. What a moron,” Betty muttered, pulling lip gloss out of her pocket and putting it on as she watched him through the mirror. He’d adjusted himself to sit against the headboard while he stared back at her. “What?”

“Just looking.”

“Has anyone, ever, thought you were smooth?”

Jughead’s mouth fell open before he snapped it closed and sniffed. “That offends me, Betty.”

Betty shrugged and put her lip gloss back in her pocket, before walking to where she’d left her shoes, putting them on while she waited for him to get up and out of bed.

“Get up and get dressed, Jug.”

“You know, this version of dirty talk isn’t really working for me. May I suggest telling me to get undressed and stay in bed-”

“Up,” she commanded, making him groan at her before he rolled out of bed and stood in front of her with messy hair and flannel pants. “That’s better.”

He shuffled over to his closet, pulling out his duffel bag and starting to pack random clothes in it.

“You haven’t packed yet?” she asked in shock.

“No,” he said. “Why would I?”

Betty gave him a tight smile instead of answering. “I’m going to go be weird at Archie until you’re ready, okay?”

“Sure,” he agreed, concentrating on packing before he looked at her with a serious face, “but no biting, killing, or otherwise maiming him.”

Betty huffed on her way to the door, mumbling something he couldn’t fully hear but he thought was about taking away all her fun.

 

* * *

 

By the time he was packed and ready to go, he could hear feminine laughter coming from the kitchen and he breathed a little easier knowing Betty probably hadn’t done anything irreversible to his best friend.

When he saw Veronica sitting next to Betty at the table, he was shocked. Even more shocked when he saw a packed bag next to Veronica’s feet.

“Morning, Jug,” Archie said, lifting his coffee mug to him in greeting. “So, as you can see, Ronnie’s coming with us.”

“I see that,” Jughead replied with a nod towards Veronica’s bag, making a beeline for the coffee maker.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Betty and Veronica happily chatting in low voices with the occasional glance towards either himself or Archie.

“Should I be worried about this?” he asked, gesturing between the two girls.

“Yes,” they answered at the same time and then resumed their talk, voices lower than before.

Archie laughed at him and clapped him on the shoulder. “You ready to go home for a week?”

Dread pooled in his gut, not for the first time since he agreed to go back to Riverdale. He closed his eyes and thought of what he and Betty might find and wondered why he hadn’t found it on his hunt when he was a teenager, at what the ghosts of history past could be hiding, and hoped against hope it wouldn’t hurt Betty too much.

She might have been fighting against what he already knew but he was prepared to spend the next week convincing her what he could feel with every beat of his heart -they were meant to be together.

“Yeah, Arch,” he said with a smile, “let’s go home.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And to Riverdale they go! 
> 
> I added a chapter because I'm a dummy but also because chapter 5 is gonna be a doozy. So there's that. 
> 
> Also, I totally burnt my hand on a 400 degree oven, someone hold me. Oh yeah, imma complain about it. And I'm still giving this to you? Wow, that's love. I joke, I joke. Not about the love thing, that's true. 
> 
> And, personally I'd like to know who is in my house and head to make all those weirdly accurate assumptions yesterday on my tumblr. Scary is what that was. 
> 
> But as ever, besos from me to you! You guys, your comments, your reactions, it's really driving this fic right now and I really appreciate it so much right now. So, again, besos and I look forward to learning what you think about this chapter. 
> 
> As always, you can [tumble](https://thetaoofbetty.tumblr.com/) with me if you want.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is chapter 4! Woohoo! Listen, is it the longest one yet? Yes. Do I want you to love it anyway? Also yes. 
> 
> Read on, lovelies!

The town was as small as Jughead said it would be, Betty thought while staring out the window of the car from the back seat. Veronica was next to her and they talked the entire drive, something Betty had never gotten to do before with another girl.

It was a novel experience and one she hoped to do again some day.

They passed a building with a bright red sign, the smell of food assaulting her senses long before Jughead groaned from the front seat and said, “I cannot wait to get my hands on a burger from Pop.”

“Pop?” she and Veronica asked simultaneously.

“Pop Tate, he runs the diner in town and makes the best burgers, Ronnie. You’ll love them,” Archie answered and laughed at Jughead, who was pressed against the passenger window as they drove past the brightly welcoming building.

“I think we’re gonna stay with my dad, Arch,” Jughead said quietly after settling back into his seat. “Four extra people at your dad’s might be a bit much.”

“You sure?” Archie asked, concerned.

Betty could almost feel the tension coming off of Jughead and the worry Archie was exuding. From what she had gathered, Jughead and his dad weren’t too close, he rarely went home on school breaks, his little sister choosing to live with their mom out of state over their dad. Though she never found out why Jughead chose to live with his dad, and by the expression on his face and how his shoulders had stiffened, she wasn’t sure she wanted to know.

Jughead nodded. “It’s just next door. It’ll be fine.”

“You know where my window is, right?”

They laughed and she shared a quizzical look with Veronica.

“Next thing you know, we’re going to hear about how their first kiss was with each other,” Veronica muttered to Betty with a raised eyebrow.

“Hey,” Archie exclaimed, “guys can be friends without doing, you know, sexy stuff.”

“Even if you did spend an inordinate amount of time wrestling Reggie Mantle in high school,” Jughead said and turned around to look at Betty with a smile. “I offered to get them rulers once but-”

Betty bit back a laugh when Archie huffed in offense and cut him off.

“I should have let Reggie beat you up,” Archie told him, turning the car onto a pretty tree- lined street that looked like it was straight out of one of the books she’d stolen over the years.

“I don’t want to unpack any of that, do you?” Veronica asked her, shaking her head while looking thoroughly amused.

“Absolutely not,” Betty agreed, distracted by her surroundings. It was so quiet, she was almost overwhelmed at being able to hear the birds in the trees and the dogs playing in the yards. Her hand rested on the window as she stared out, taking it all in; the clean air and the bright blue of the sky.

Betty noticed the tension rising in Jughead the closer they got to their destination, so she leaned forward to rest a hand on his shoulder. “We don’t have to stay with your dad if you don’t want to. I can find a hotel or something if it’s too crowded-”

Cut off by him laying his hand on hers, he gave her fingers a soft squeeze before he shook his head. “It’s fine, Betty.”

“You don’t smell fine-”

“Smell?” Veronica interrupted, looking between them confused.

“I meant look. He doesn’t look fine,” Betty said, trying to cover her mistake.

She heard Archie mutter something under his breath and her eyes narrowed in his direction. Jughead pulled her hand forward, giving it a gentle kiss and she blinked dumbly at his profile for a moment. She’d never been given that sort of intimacy before and she didn’t know what to do with it.

Acting on instinct, she intertwined their fingers together and rested her forehead on the headrest of the seat in front of her. If she paid attention, she could pinpoint which heartbeat was Jughead’s, and like she had that morning, she let the steadiness of it calm her down.

 

* * *

 

Jughead had known he was going to have a hard time keeping Betty and Archie from going after each other, but he hadn’t thought Archie would be so reactionary to her. While, yes, Archie had his reasons to dislike Betty, he wasn’t aware of what the instinct was that kept Betty in an almost aggressive state towards his best friend. It was one of the things that had helped him decide to finally stay with his dad during the break. He knew, if pressed, that he would pick Betty over Archie and he didn’t want that to be what their trip home was about.

He’d offered to help Betty look into her own disappearance and that was what he planned to do.

The apprehension crept back into him when Archie pulled into his driveway, and Jughead took a deep breath before he unbuckled his seat belt and got out of the car, opening Betty’s door for her before he turned to look over at his dad’s place. The house next to Archie’s, a childhood fantasy come true when he was a teenager.

Betty was holding onto him tightly and the moment her fingers touched his skin, another wave of deja vu washed over him. The more they touched, the stronger it felt and he vowed to look into it, hopefully finding something in one of the many books Betty had most likely stolen over the years.

He gazed down at her. His little thief, he thought with a smile, before he looked back at the house he’d been avoiding for the last few years. “Ready?”

Betty nodded at him and her fingers gripped him even tighter. “Yeah.”

He turned to Archie, who was helping Veronica with her overly large suitcase. “Dinner at Pop’s?”

“Sure thing, Jug,” Archie replied, distracted by the suitcase and the bag Veronica was handing him to put on top of her luggage.

It felt like a long walk to his front door, and he noticed Betty had slowed as they reached the porch.

“You okay?”

“I don’t know,” she told him, keeping herself close to him. “I think your emotions are bleeding onto me.”

“Shit,” he said, wrapping an arm around her. “I’m sorry.”

“Why are you so sad, Jug?”

“I don’t always have the best relationship with my dad and I never know which version of him I’m going to get. He tries, but-”

She rested her head on his shoulder. “It’ll be okay.”

Jughead wasn’t sure about that but he braced himself before letting himself in the house, Betty still clinging to him in uncertainty. The house looked the same as it always had, cleaner, even.

“Dad?” Jughead called out, setting his and Betty’s bags down in the entryway. “Are you home?”

The silence that greeted him felt like a wave of relief.

“He must be at work,” he said to Betty, taking her hand and leading her to the kitchen. “Come on, I’ll show you around.”

He took a drink out of the fridge before waving his hand around. “This is the kitchen. Dining room is over there. You saw the living room.” A gesture towards the back of the house. “There’s a backyard out there.”

“Wow,” Betty said, nodding at him with big eyes, “you should be a tour guide, really.”

“I really should,” he agreed. “Think of how much time people could save if they didn’t have to pretend to be interested in stuff they don’t really care about to appear polite.”

She rolled her eyes at him.

“Unless you want me to show you the bedroom-”

“Charming,” she interrupted with narrowed eyes.

“I could be, if you let me.”

“I bet. How about we figure out my past before I start offering you my future?”

A pang of sadness hit him then. He might not like his history, but at least he knew what it was.

“Deal, but I’m still gonna try. Besides, it’s all part of the fake dating package.”

“And you know,” she said, smirking, “I’m like seventy years older than you, right?”

“And yet you don’t look a day over seventeen.”

She scoffed at him when he smiled wryly at her.

“Come on, let’s take the bags upstairs.”

He showed her around upstairs, dropping their bags off in his bedroom and she eyed him when he put them side by side near his old closet.

“Presumptuous,” she commented, sitting on the seat in the window and gazing outside of it. “He really doesn’t close his curtains, does he?”

“What?” Jughead asked as he walked over to her. “Yeah, that’s-”

“Gross.”

“Yeah. Let me close these,” he said, drawing the curtains shut when she moved off the soft cushion under the window, and he watched her as she made herself comfortable looking through his things. “Fred must not be home if they’re going at it like that.”

Betty shrugged her disinterest. “He seems to take directions well.”

“You can hear that?” Jughead tried not to gag at the thought. “Seriously?”

She continued to look through his old dresser as she answered him. “Veronica's being pretty vocal about what she wants.”

“Too much information.”

“You asked.”

Jughead made a face of disgust. “And I have regrets.”

Betty pulled out one of the shirts he wore in high school and turned around holding it up while she looked him over. He didn’t know what she was thinking as she took him in but, it couldn’t have been too bad since she walked over to her bag and shoved the shirt in.

He snorted but didn’t say anything.

“So, when do you want to start investigating?”

She turned to him, contemplative. “As soon as possible? If it’s a cold case then no one is looking anymore, right?”

“Well-”

“Jughead.” She stared at him like she was ready for him to placate her. “It’s been seventy years, no one is still looking for a girl who disappeared before even some of your grandparents were born.”

“I was,” he told her sincerely before he walked over to her and took her hands in his. “I was looking for you. Maybe always have been, I don’t know.”

She gave him a sad smile. “That’s something, at least.”

 

* * *

 

He hadn’t thought it through when he agreed to dinner at Pop’s with Archie, but he’d been thinking about a Pop’s burger for longer than he’d admit and it just spilled out when Archie had asked.

When they’d slipped into a booth, Betty had looked uncomfortable. Almost as if she’d never sat in a restaurant before, and he wondered if that was the case. Her hands were on her lap under the table and she sat staring at the menu blankly for a moment before picking it up and giving it a once over.

“What looks good, Bettykins?” Veronica asked Betty, peeking over the menu at her.

“Uhm,” Betty said, focusing on the words in front of her. “A burger?”

“Good choice,” Jughead interjected a little louder than was necessary. “Burgers are always good.”

Veronica eyed him from across the table. “Generally, yes. Burgers are usually good.” She smiled at Betty. “I’m thinking a milkshake, do you want to share with me?”

“Sure,” Betty agreed somewhat uncertainly in an obvious effort not to be rude.

“Great,” Veronica said, turning back to her menu.

“Are you okay?” he asked Betty quietly, leaning into her.

“I don’t eat!” she mouthed to him silently.

“I know,” he told her soothingly. “It’ll be okay.”

It had been easy to let Betty fake eating a burger: she’d pick at it, ripping at while he faked offense at her mistreatment of Pop’s perfect creation while grabbing the pieces to take for himself. Archie hadn’t even blinked at him eating most of Betty’s meal and Veronica looked at him funny once or twice but kept her comments to herself. The milkshake had proven much harder an obstacle.

First, he’d asked for a second straw for Betty to have, earning a glare from Veronica.

“I’m not going to give your girlfriend cooties,” she’d snapped at him while Archie raised his eyebrows in his direction.

“Can’t be too careful,” he’d said with a shrug.

It was his best defense, he decided. To be rude enough to distract them from the fact that Betty hadn’t eaten a single bite of her own food.

Plopping the straw into the milkshake, he took a big drink of it while Veronica screeched at him then handed it to Betty.

“Quality control,” he muttered through a brain freeze. “Here, baby.”

Betty’s eyes went wide at the endearment but took the glass from him and gave Veronica a smile as she wrapped her lips around the straw, pretending to drink. Jughead took it back from her before handing it to Veronica, taking another gulp.

“Stop that!” Veronica exclaimed. “Betty, how do you eat with him?”

“Carefully,” Betty replied, giving Jughead a sidelong glance.

By the time they’d made it back to his house, Jughead couldn’t decide if he wanted to be sick from how much he’d eaten to cover for Betty’s not eating, or if he was ready to pass out from what he was sure was an impending sugar coma.

Ready to fall into his bed, he groaned when he realized his dad was awake and waiting for them in the living room, the TV on but with the volume turned down. Jughead watched his dad take him in with amusement before his eyes slid to Betty and back, giving him a sly grin.

“So, Jug, you finally brought a girl home and she didn’t run screaming after she saw the damage you can do at Pop’s?”

Jughead narrowed his eyes but felt too gross to care at the moment. “Had to happen eventually.”

“Nice to meet you…” FP trailed off, extending his hand to Betty.

“Betty,” she said, sticking her own hand out, keeping her other arm wrapped around Jughead tightly. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Jones.”

“Betty.” FP rolled the name around in his mouth before quirking a smile at her as he shook her hand. “Jug didn’t tell me much of anything about you.”

“Because you’d do this,” Jughead grumbled and fought the desire to carry Betty all the way to his bedroom so he could feel gross in peace. “Can we do this in the morning when I’m not dying?”

FP laughed. “Age getting to you?”

“He went a little overboard,” Betty told FP, a small smile on her face. “And he’s a little dramatic.”

“Ahh,” FP hummed out. “That is the Jones family motto, so I shouldn’t be surprised.”

“Dad,” Jughead warned as Betty laughed and he met his dad’s eyes, surprised they were clear and focused on him with affectionate amusement.

“Fine, fine,” FP said, holding his hands up in surrender. “Go to bed.”

“Thanks,” Jughead muttered, leading Betty out of the room and up the stairs.

Betty closed the door behind them as he stumbled to his bed and fell face first onto it.

“You really are dramatic,” she told him after she kicked off her shoes and climbed onto his bed next to him. “I don’t think you needed to eat _that_ much.”

“I definitely did,” he shot back in a muffled argument. “I ate your food and mine and then I had to drink your part of a milkshake-”

“That doesn’t explain the third burger, Jug.”

“I had to!”

“You really didn’t,” she scolded, running her hands through his hair after she pulling his beanie off, tossing it onto the nightstand.

“I need sleep,” he mumbled as he turned his face to the side to look up at her. “Are you going to be okay overnight?”

Betty nodded at him. “I know how to entertain myself.”

“That sounds so much dirtier than it should.”

She raised her eyebrows at him. “Did you not get this out of your system in puberty?”

After a moment of struggle, Jughead flipped himself over with a groan. “Shockingly enough, I was more interested in basically everything else but innuendos and girls.”

With a laugh, she ran her fingers through his hair again and he sighed at the contact.

“Go to sleep.”

He let himself drift off, ignoring the nagging feeling in the back of his head that he should get up and get ready for bed. It wasn't  until hours later when he woke up abruptly, adrenaline pumping at the realization that he was alone in his bedroom, the window open while the curtains moved faintly in the breeze.

 

* * *

 

 Sneaking into the Sheriff’s office was easier than she thought it would be, Betty decided, as she slipped back out of the building, Elizabeth Cooper’s file in hand. It was so much easier to find her way around these days, with technology the way it was. She’d stolen Jughead’s phone and used the GPS to make her way to the police station, avoiding the pitifully visible cameras. She’d only had to put one person into a trance to get behind the doors.

Laughably easy, almost. It made her wonder if Jughead had ever tried to break in and get the file himself. Even if he was more law abiding than she was.

She found her way to a local park, sitting on the bench in the dark to flip through the file, wanting to see it before she took it back to Jughead.

**Name: Elizabeth Ann Cooper**

**DOB: January 17, 1933**

**Date Missing: May 7, 1950**

**Last Seen: Riverdale High School**

That was all she’d read before she felt the sudden need to see the high school, like something in the back of her head screaming to follow her own last steps. She knew she shouldn’t have run there, it burned through her reserves too quickly when she did and she’d told Jughead she’d be fine with not feeding for the week they’d be there, but she couldn’t help herself. As soon as she’d looked up the school on his phone, she’d grabbed the file and ran to Riverdale High, only stopping at the entrance of the school, an eerie feeling crawling up her spine. She spun around and looked side to side, not sure why she wanted to go left, but she followed her instinct and headed South.

There was no reason to believe she’d find anything wandering around Riverdale, but there was an urgency in the back of her head to find it, whatever “it” was.

No one stopped her. No one harassed her. There was no one, anywhere, as far as she could tell and it was almost uncomfortable for her, the feeling of dread she couldn’t name crawling over her skin while she walked.

 

* * *

 

Jughead was trying not to freak out. Trying and failing.

He’d woken up, his stomach churning in anticipation as he looked around for Betty and didn’t see her. Her bag was still sitting next to his and he breathed a little sigh of relief knowing she hadn’t taken off completely. When he went to grab his phone and noticed it missing, he groaned.

 _Little thief,_ he thought. This time with less amusement and affection than he had before.

He ran down the stairs and was on his way out the door when he noticed his dad sitting at the dining room table, doing paperwork.

Knowing he wasn’t going to get out of the house unnoticed, he made his way to the table, leaning against it. “You know, it’s still weird to me that you’re Sheriff even after all these years.”

His dad scoffed but smiled. “You shouldn’t be, it was my nosy boy who ended up getting me the job.”

“Who knew one Mayoral scandal could get a ex-criminal in the Sheriff's office?”

FP shrugged. “Tom is a good man, Jug, but this town would rather put a criminal on the payroll than an adulterer.”

“They’re still happy, right?” Jughead asked, feeling a pang of guilt for being the reason the Mayor and the Sheriff had lost their jobs. He hadn’t meant to, but his impulsivity of following a lead as a teenager had blown up in all of their faces more than once.

“Tom and Sierra? Yeah, they’re doing good.”

“That’s good.”

“Now,” FP started, taking off his glasses and looking at Jughead, “you want to tell me why that girl looks exactly like that picture you carried around for over a year?”

Jughead’s eyebrows flew up in shock. “Uh, no? Not really.”

“Jug.” FP sighed, running his hand through his hair. “I knew you were bordering on an unhealthy fixation with that case, which is why I hid the file from you for years-”

“I knew you did something!”

“-but to find that girl’s doppelganger? Seems a bit unfair to her.”

“Dad,” Jughead said, exasperated, “Her name is Betty.”

“I’m aware.”

He closed his eyes and thought about why he was about to tell his dad this. Despite their rocky past, FP kept trying and eventually Jughead would have to admit that it had to mean something. Plus, the fact that he needed his Dad’s phone to track his own made his choice for him.

“Betty is short for Elizabeth.”

FP’s mouth dropped open in disbelief. “You’re telling me that girl is Elizabeth Cooper?”

Jughead tapped his nose.

“That’s impossible.”

“Not if you think the impossible is only improbable.”

FP rubbed his eyes and sat back in his chair. He stared up at Jughead and blew out a breath before leaning back to the table and rested his elbow on it. “They say weird stuff happens in Greendale, you know. Stuff that leaks over into Riverdale.”

“Weird stuff happens everywhere.”

“True. So, that’s Elizabeth Cooper?”

“In the undead flesh.”

“Undead?”

Jughead nodded and sat down. As anxious as he was to find Betty, he knew she was the most dangerous thing walking the streets at the moment and he needed his dad on his side. He pulled the collar of his shirt aside, letting the light hit the two pinprick holes that were still slightly bruised on his neck.

“Jughead.” FP’s voice made it clear he wanted no bullshit. “Are you telling me that girl is a vampire?”

“Yup.”

“And it’s not some weird sex thing between you?”

“Dad!” Jughead grimaced at the implication. “No. And don’t talk about sex to me.”

“Where’d you find her?”

“She found me, really. I stopped her from making Archie into a meal-”

“Archie?” FP laughed.

“I knew there was something off about her. But listen, she didn’t know who she was. That’s why we’re here, to try and figure it out, and since she took off out of my window with my phone-”

“Your phone?”

Jughead waved him off. “She steals sometimes, I think it's a habit by now.”

FP’s raised his eyebrows.

“So, I need your phone to track my phone so I can find my girlfriend.”

“Your ‘vampire’ girlfriend?” his dad asked. “The one who steals things?”

“Yes.”

“Jughead,” FP said as he pushed his phone towards him, looking like he wanted to argue but seemed to admit defeat before starting an unwinnable argument, “do you know what you’re doing?”

“Nope,” he said easily, taking the phone and shoving it in his pocket as he stood. “Have you talked to Jellybean lately?”

“Yeah,” FP replied, smiling. “She’s good. Says you don’t call her enough. And that your last birthday present was better than mine.”

“Because you still think she’s five.”

“She’ll always be my little girl, Jug, I can’t help it.”

Jughead shook his head and smiled. “Don’t tell her that.”

“Too late.” FP narrowed his eyes at him, his face turning serious. “Be careful, Jug.”

“Will do,” he promised and grabbed the keys to his dad’s car on his way out of the front door.

 

* * *

 

Jughead reminded himself to tell his dad to change his phone’s password to something more difficult than the mix of his and Jellybean’s birthdays while he started to track his own phone, suddenly grateful for the app he’d forgotten to turn off.

His phone was unmoving, a dot at the edge of Fox Forest and it had him moving faster. It helped, he thought, that he was driving the Sheriff’s cruiser through town. He was speeding, he knew, but didn’t care, he felt a prickling at the back of his neck that he needed to get to Betty as soon as he could.

The headlights lit up her form on the edge of the road where she sat, arms curled around her knees.

He stopped the car but left the lights on so he could see her better. “Betty?”

“How’d you find me?” she asked, not meeting his eyes.

He pulled out the phone, showing it to her. “Technology.”

Betty gave him a small smile.

“What are you doing out here?” he asked, sitting next to her on the ground. He saw the file laying next to her. “Find something interesting?”

“Not really,” she answered, resting her forehead on her knees. “It doesn’t actually say much.”

“Why are you out here?”

Betty shrugged. “I’m not sure. I went to the high school at first but I don’t know, I felt like I needed to be here.”

“Okay.” Jughead stood, offering her a hand. “We should get back before-”

“Jug?”

His eyes flicked to hers at the sadness in her voice. Her face was open and vulnerable in the mix of moonlight and the bright lights from the car, her nose scrunched in her insecurity.

“What if we never figure it out?”

“What?”

“There’s nothing in there. Just the stuff you already knew and names of people they say are my family who I don’t remember.”

“Of course we will-”

“But what if we don’t?” She stood up to face him. “What if-”

“Hey,” he said, cupping her cheeks in his hands, “We will. And if we don’t, that’s okay, we can make a new history.”

Her hands covered his and she leaned into his touch. “You know, when you touch me it feels like an echo.”

“Yeah,” he agreed and glanced down at her lips, licking his own in anticipation of what he already knew he was going to do. “It does.”

She caught his eye as he moved in, rolling up on her toes to meet him halfway.

Her lips were the softest thing he'd ever touched. His hands moved off her face and into her hair, his fingers gripping it to pull her closer to him. The soft brush of her tongue against his lips got lost in the pulse of energy he felt move through him, making him see white behind his eyes, a flood of memories and emotions pouring through him while he held her close.

 

* * *

 

“Hello, Elizabeth.” Jughead breathed in deeply before opening his eyes. Eyes that were suddenly far too old for the body they were in. “I missed you.”

Betty’s eyes were wide as she stared up at him, her hand over her mouth as her lip trembled, biting back a sob before she whispered, “Juggie?”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, what just happened, am I right? 
> 
> Honestly I am very excited for the next chapter and I appreciate you all coming along on this journey with me. I would totally paint all your nails and braid your hair and we could just pile in a big puff of pillows and talk about bughead, okay? 
> 
> Just, wow, guys, we’re really getting close to the end, aren’t we? Magical or some ish. But besos to you! Seriously, just so much love from me to you that you continually read my nonsense and then have the audacity to lie to me and tell me you like it? Mind blowing. 
> 
> I hope you liked this chapter and I hope you liked it enough to tell me what you thought of it! 
> 
> As always, you can [tumble](https://thetaoofbetty.tumblr.com/) with me if you want.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello and here we go! 
> 
>  
> 
> **Before you start though, please be aware there is some angst and depiction of death in the chapter, you gorgeous bunch of lovelies!**

**August 1949**

“You gonna ask if you can take my picture first?” the blonde asked him, flipping her ponytail in his direction. 

“I just like taking pictures of beautiful things,” he said, lowering the camera that had been in front of his face. 

She arched an eyebrow at him and leaned across the diner counter, tapping her pencil against the formica. “That line ever work on other girls?” 

He smiled, adjusting a setting on the camera. “No idea, I've never tried it before.” Focusing on her, he took the shot right as she started to laugh. “Is it working on you at all?” 

 

* * *

 

**September 1949**

“Elizabeth Cooper, we meet again,” Jughead said, leaning over her and shutting her locker gently to get her full attention. 

“Forsythe,” Betty acknowledged, holding her books close to her chest as she spun around to face him. 

“I was thinking you should let me carry those for you.” He reached for the books in her arms, slipping them into his own with ease. “And maybe let me walk you to class seeing as I don’t know where it’s at.” 

“They didn’t give you a map with your schedule?” 

“Must have lost it,” he said with a wink. “Come on, doll, show me where to go.” 

Betty flushed but didn’t tell him to get lost, which he considered a win so far. He’d been asking her out since he saw her working a lunch shift at Pop’s about a week after he and his dad had moved to Riverdale. Her pretty blonde hair and green eyes felt like something he hadn’t known he was missing until he saw her. 

“So, I hear there’s a drive-in in town,” he offered casually, trying to make conversation. 

Betty tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “You’re telling me you’ve lived here a month and you’re just now hearing of the Twilight? Pull the other one.” 

“Have I told you I like your sass?” 

“Constantly,” Betty said, turning left down a hallway to lead them to what he assumed was their homeroom. 

“And of course I knew about it, I was just trying to let you know I knew about it so when you ask me to go with you this Friday, you’ll know that I know what it is.” 

She stopped, mouth falling open. “Forsythe-” 

With a gentle touch he pushed her chin up, closing her mouth. “Just one date, Elizabeth. And call me Jughead.” 

“You don’t call me Betty like I asked you to.” 

He shrugged, wrapping an arm around her as they continued to walk. “I don’t want to be like everyone else.” 

“Only my mother calls me Elizabeth. You saying you want to be like my mother?” 

“I’m saying I want one date.” 

“Just one?” 

“To start, yeah,” he replied with a smile, ignoring the stares they were getting. “I have grand plans to win you over.” 

Betty rolled her eyes at him, stopping to take her books back from him as they approached one of the classrooms. “You’re not going to give up, are you?” 

“Probably not, no.” 

“Fine, pick me up on Saturday night, Jughead,” she said, using his nickname for the first time since he’d met her. She’d refused to call him by anything until he’d given her the real thing, thinking that was better than nothing. 

Jughead smiled widely, feeling victorious. “Is this our homeroom or what?” 

Betty stared up at him with an innocent expression. “It’s mine. Guess you should have looked at your schedule, huh?” 

He bit back a laugh and reached for the schedule he’d stuffed in his back pocket. Seeing that he was definitely in the wrong spot, he sighed but couldn’t bring himself to care that he was going to be late on his first day. “You’re something else, Betts.”

 

* * *

 

**October 1949**

She’d kissed him on the cheek after every date for over a month and he’d been hoping to get the real thing on his birthday. 

It’d been torture, not turning his head just a little to meet her lips with his, he didn’t want to scare her off. Some people hadn’t been too thrilled with the new kid who rolled into town and scored a date with Betty Cooper, they were even less thrilled when he kept taking her out. 

The jocks had started a couple fights with him over the last month and it only took him giving and getting one black eye with a week’s detention for all of them before they’d stopped bothering him during school hours. The kid on the motorcycle from the wrong side of town shouldn’t date pretty and sweet girls like Betty Cooper was the gist of whatever it was they kept saying. 

Leaned up against her locker on the Monday morning of his birthday before school, he kept rolling his eyes at the dirty looks he was getting. Why they felt the need to insert themselves into their relationship, he’d never know, but at least no one was getting punched anymore. 

Sometimes he thought he felt her before he saw her, his head snapping in the direction she was coming from, smiling at him in the way that set butterflies off in his stomach. From the ribbon in her hair to the black and white of her shoes, she was always such a pretty picture. 

“Good morning, Jug,” she said when she reached him, handing him a package before kissing him on the cheek in greeting. 

“Morning, Betty. What’s this?” 

“Open it.” 

He peeked into the box she’d given him and saw a perfectly frosted cupcake with a little heart drawn on it in frosting. He felt something like pride welling up at the pink on her cheeks when he met her eyes. It was the first time she’d made such an overt gesture of how she might feel about him. 

“Is that heart for me?” 

Pink, he decided, when it was on her, could be the prettiest color there was. 

“Maybe.” 

“Just maybe?” 

“Maybe I forgot how to spell,” she said, popping her hip out as she set a hand on it. “Maybe I’m still making up my mind about you.” 

“I don’t think you are,” he told her with a mock serious expression. “I think you’ve made it up and are just living to torture me.” 

“It’s possible,” she agreed, taking a step closer to him. 

Jughead moved to wrap an arm around her waist, giving her a soft kiss on the forehead. “Meet me after school?” 

“The Blue and Gold?” 

“Where else?” 

The day had felt tortuously long while he waited for the end bell to ring. He’d seen Betty in some classes and at lunch, eating the cupcake she’d given him in full view where everyone could see him and feeling smug the whole time, but as he waited for her in the newspaper office, his nerves were getting the better of him. 

He breathed in relief when he saw her walk through the door, closing it behind her. 

“How’s my girl?” he asked, getting off the desk he’d been sitting on. 

“You just saw me an hour ago,” she answered with a laugh. 

“The longest hour of my life.” 

“You say that every time.” 

“And it’s always true.” 

Betty arched an eyebrow at him but was still smiling. “Can I help you with something, Jughead?” 

“Yes. I think I might die.” 

“Die? From?” 

He could hear her amusement and decided to press his luck even further. “From a distinct lack of kissing you, Betty Cooper.” 

Her laughter rang out loudly into the room. 

“Is that all?” 

“‘Is that all?’ she says,” he said, reaching for her hand. “I think it could be terminal.” 

“Sounds awful,” she whispered breathlessly when he pulled her close. 

Her hands landed on his leather jacket, curling into the well worn fabric as she rose on her toes to meet him halfway, his hands settled firmly on her hips when their lips met in a sweet kiss. Jughead could feel the pulse of energy moving through him and the white behind his eyes almost blinding him before the memories and emotions pulsed through him. 

“Hello Elizabeth,” he said, breathing her in deeply before he opened his eyes to take her in once more. “I missed you.” 

He could hear the relief in her voice when she met his eyes with her tear filled ones. 

“I missed you too.” 

 

* * *

 

**January 17th, 1950**

It had taken Jughead months to track the witch down in Greendale, it wasn’t until almost Christmas when he’d found her, coming upon her while she gardened outside of large Victorian house. 

_“You’re a hard woman to pin down, Zelda,” he announced, hoping she wouldn’t turn him into a frog like she had the last time he’d pissed her off. That had been an uncomfortable six hours that he never wanted to repeat. “Though easier once you hear the rumors of a garden without snow that flourishes in the winter.”_

_“I like to keep an air of mystery about me, that’s true,” she agreed without looking at him, continuing to pull the weeds out from around her flowers. “What do you want from me this time, Forsythe?”_

_“I need an anchor for Elizabeth,” Jughead admitted. “This is unfair to her.”_

_“You’re paying your penance-”_

_“This is beyond penance, this is punishment and you know it,” Jughead interrupted, clenching his jaw._

_Zelda stood, wiping her hands off on her long dark skirts. “Maybe so, but you made your choices.”_

_“And I will live with them, but she does not deserve this!”_

_She held her hands out in surrender. “Maybe not, but it doesn’t change what is or will be.”_

_“This might,” he said, pulling the box out of his pocket and handing it to her. “I need you to help me change fate before it comes for us again.”_

_Zelda took the box, opening it and peering down at the delicate gold bracelet that had already been engraved with his chosen words. “You sentimental fool.”_

Holding the wrapped box, he took a deep breath before tucking it in his jacket and pushing his way through the door at Pop’s. Betty had promised to meet him that night for her birthday, still avoiding having in the same room as her parents after their disastrous Thanksgiving dinner. The Coopers hadn’t been thrilled about their daughter dating anyone, much less a boy from the Southside. He’d not cared what they thought but he didn’t want to make Betty’s life any harder than it was. Or was going to be. 

He saw her sitting in the booth they’d come to call theirs, one tucked back in the far corner where they could be mostly alone and he could write or look over his pictures while she worked her weekend shifts, eating her lunch with him when she could get a break. She looked serene, sitting there in a pale yellow dress, her hair pulled back with a white headband that matched the sweater sitting around her shoulders. 

Sliding into the booth, he kissed her cheek before relaxing into the vinyl cushion behind him. “Happy birthday, Betty.” 

“You said that this morning. And at lunch,” she told him, rolling her eyes but smiling softly at him just the same. “And we can’t forget after school.” 

“I mean it every time.” 

Her light laughter ran through him and he wrapped an arm around her before he pulled the box out of his jacket. “This was supposed to be for Christmas, but it took me a while to get it made.” 

“You didn’t have to get me a present,” she admonished, taking the box anyhow, admiring the delicate white and silver paper wrapped around it. She untied the ribbon slowly, as she always did, enjoying the process of unveiling what he’d gotten for her. 

Her gasp when she opened her gift was loud for the quiet of the diner, the dinner rush long past and only a few stragglers in for an evening coffee around to see what they were doing. He ignored the look the waitress gave them, choosing to focus solely on Betty. 

He took the chain out of the box, undoing the clasp and gesturing for her to give him her arm. “I love you, Betts.” 

Betty’s tear filled eyes shone at him as he placed it on her wrist. “I love you, too.” 

“It’s not just a bracelet-” 

“I know, I can feel something but I’m not sure what.” 

“Do you miss it?” 

“You ask me that every time.”

“Do you regret it?”

Betty laid her head on his shoulder. “No.” 

 

* * *

 

**May 6th, 1950**

“You look beautiful,” Jughead told her, slipping the corsage over her wrist. “I borrowed my dad’s truck so you wouldn’t have to mess up your dress on my motorcycle.” 

Her smile was almost electric as she rushed him through the pictures her parents insisted on, the impatience she had becoming more and more clear. It was getting harder for her with her parents, the _knowing_ always made things more difficult for the both of them. 

They felt out of place and out of time. 

The Riverdale High gym had been decorated with balloons and streamers, the shining lights making it more than it was, and Betty’s happiness was infectious while he spun her around the dance floor. Her pink dress twirled around her legs as she laughed, circling back into his arms over and over until she was breathless. 

“You want to get out of here?” he asked in a whisper during one of the slow songs, holding her close. 

He felt her nod against his chest and he tightened his grip, kissing her temple.

 

* * *

 

**May 7th, 1950**

“No, no, no,” Jughead muttered in a panic, holding Betty in his lap. 

She was drifting in and out of consciousness while he wiped the blood off her face, pushing it back into her hairline, trying to keep it out of her eyes. 

“Elizabeth, look at me,” he said when her eyes fluttered open, trying to find his. “That’s it, baby, just keep looking at me.” 

“Is it time already?” 

“No,” Jughead told her. “It was just an accident, a deer ran in front of the truck. You’ll be okay.” 

“It hurts,” she whimpered, her hands fluttering around her midsection and he reached to steady them, keeping her from finding the gaping wound in her side, her blood staining the pink of her dress. 

“I know,” he soothed, intertwining their fingers, the blood making it harder for him to keep a grip on her. “It’s gonna be fine.” 

“We almost had a year this time.” 

Jughead smiled through his tears. “We did. And we’ll have more, you just need to hang on, okay?”

Her eyes fluttered shut. “This was one of the best ones.” 

He tried to keep her talking, to keep her awake. “Which was your favorite?” 

“The first one.” 

“Yeah,” he agreed, trying again to keep the blood from running into her eyes. 

He wiped at his own face, smearing her blood on his cheek as he looked around for anyone to help them. He knew, though, that no one was coming. 

No one he wanted to see, anyway. 

“Do you ever think this will stop?” 

“You and me? Never,” he promised, bringing her hand up to his lips to kiss it softly. “Not ever.” 

“No, this,” she said weakly and her free hand fluttered over herself. “Being punished for loving me.” 

“Loving you has never been a punishment.” 

“Even now?” 

“Especially now,” he murmured into her hair, laying his cheek on the top of her head. “We’ll figure it out, you and me.” 

“I like that,” she whispered, her eyes struggling to stay open. “You and me.” 

“It’s always you and me.” 

“Good.” 

“Betty, stay awake. Come on, not now, just hang on a little while longer,” he begged, staring hard at her bracelet, willing it to work. “Just keep those beautiful eyes open for me, okay?”

“I’m tired, Jug.” Her breathing was labored and each word came out slurred. “Can you hold me?” 

He bit back a sob, he refused to tell her he _was_ holding her. “Always.” 

Jughead felt her hand twitch lightly and he could see that her eyes were staying closed for longer beats between blinks. 

“Did I forget to tell you I love you?”

“No,” he said, because he knew. No one would go through what she went through for him, over and over if they didn’t love someone. “I love you too.” 

“That’s good.” 

His vision was blurry with tears but he just kept wiping his face, trying to see her clearly for as long as possible. “Why’s that?” 

“Who doesn’t want to be loved, Juggie?” 

He almost laughed. Leave it to his girl to make something so big so simple. She smiled at him when she heard his laughter and closed her eyes for the last time, leaving him sobbing over her chest in the middle of the road outside of Fox Forest.  

Jughead felt more than saw the light that flashed over him. 

“Must we keep doing this?” 

He gripped Betty’s body tighter and clenched his fists in anger. “Do we have to do this now?” 

He heard a sigh and looked up, squinting at the white glow. 

“You know how it works, Forsythe.” 

“She’s done nothing wrong!” 

“She’s an abomination!” 

“A human is not an abomination,” he seethed, clutching Betty close to him. “Why do you keep doing this?” 

“A witch is not human,” Antoinette said, anger shining on her features. 

“She gave up her magic, you know that,” Jughead argued, trying to stand with Betty in his arms but unable to get his own footing. 

“And you gave up your wings to be with her, where did it get you?” 

Jughead glared at the angel with rage in his eyes. “This is not the penance for Falling, Antoinette.” 

“No,” she agreed, “it’s the punishment for the Fated. Something you set in motion.” 

Sitting on his knees, Jughead let his head fall forward, shoulders slumped. “We both made sacrifices-” 

“You were a favorite of the Gods, Forsythe. ‘An angel of peace’ they said, but you threw it away to be with someone born from a disgrace.” 

“She’s not a disgrace!” 

Antoinette looked at Betty with disgust. “She’s unclean, Forsythe, and now you along with her. This is the price you pay. Is it so worth it? To have her over and over for so little time? You can repent, you can come home-” 

“I am home.” 

Antoinette’s wings fluttered in the breeze. “Then this is the price you pay.” 

Jughead kneeled over Betty once more, taking her hand in his to touch her bracelet. “So you say.” 

“What did you do?” she asked, taking note of his actions. 

“What needed to be done.” Jughead stood and looked down at Betty’s face, taking it in. “I wanted one life with her. Just one human life with the woman I loved and you continue to play these games with me.” 

“You’re the one who crossed the line, to love a human is bad enough but to love a witch? To give up the heavens for-” 

“I chose her.” 

“Look at the cost!” 

Jughead smiled. “I choose her.” 

“Then so be it.” 

 

* * *

 

Zelda sighed, walking past the line of the forest as Forsythe disappeared once again to where Betty lay in the street, the still smoking truck against the tree it had crashed into. She kneeled next to her and whispered a blessing before closing her eyes, the truck vanishing along with the blood and rips in Betty’s dress. 

“I know this isn’t what you want, Elizabeth, but it’s the only way,” Zelda whispered before gesturing for the creature behind her to come forward. 

The vampire scoffed over her shoulder. “There’s hardly enough blood for a meal.” 

“You’re not making a meal of her, you imbecile, you’re turning her.” 

Standing, she stepped back and watched as the vampire injected his venom into Betty, wiping away the tears that fell on her cheeks. This was the best she could do, given the circumstances. The bracelet would anchor Betty’s soul and call to Forsythe when she was ready to find him. Her memories would be gone but that would be best, a blank slate for her to exist on until fate found its way to them once again. 

Maybe the next time they’d be able to overcome it. 

 

* * *

 

**The Present**

“I missed you so much,” he said, pulling her in close, his nose finding a home in her hair as it always had before. 

Her arms hung limply at her sides. 

Jughead stepped back, taking in her stricken face. “Betty?” 

“You did this.” 

“I did what I had to do,” he insisted, reaching for her when she moved away from him. 

“You made me a monster,” she whispered, her fists clenched and tears falling, the pink tinge of them leaving stains across her cheeks. “You said you loved me!” She was in front of him in a flash, beating ineffectively on his chest. 

“I did this for you-” 

“I would have rather died-” 

“You did die, and I watched it! As I always watch it, over and over again and I can’t take it again, Elizabeth,” he begged, arms wrapping around her to still her assault on him. 

“You’re the reason I’m a killer, Forsythe, and I’ll never forgive you for it,” she hissed as she broke away and ran faster than his eyes could follow in the dark, leaving him to fall to his knees, calling for her to come back.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love you? Like, sooooo much. Honestly. Full stop. 
> 
> Also, fun fact- I had to pick Toni because hers is the only name that wasn’t too modern or was already a character I’d put in the modern timeline. My google search probably thinks I’m going to name my hypothetical kid after a Riverdale character now. Sigh. 
> 
> I am not. Even hypothetically imma name kid something like Ninja Turtle Awesome Smudge Pants the First. Duh. 
> 
> So, shockingly after all that, I still really want to know what you thought, even if it’s yelling. Writing that was...well, it was hard on me tbh, like, I stopped a couple times because I upset myself, hah. Whoops. I hope it didn’t upset anyone else too much. I vote we all have a big besos hug fest. 
> 
> And s’mores. I feel like we should get s’mores too. But again, besos and thanks for showing up to my nonsense and I love you all and we’re totally gonna fix this. Promise. 
> 
> Also I’m super into the idea of a Jughead with wings, fight me. 
> 
> As always, you can [ tumble](https://thetaoofbetty.tumblr.com/) with me if you want.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello all! 
> 
> Honestly, like, wow, I updated, I know. I don't even know what to say except read it, hah. 
> 
> READ ON MY GORGEOUS GARDENIAS!

Betty ran faster than she ever had before, not caring that she was burning through her reserves, almost ensuring she would need to eat within the next twenty-four hours. Without a direction, she just kept running, away from Jughead, away from the hurt. 

Logically, she knew he had done what he felt he needed to, he’d watched her die too many times. The first had been their best life in her opinion, but probably her worst death. 

She couldn't imagine what it had been like for him, but the part of her that was angry, the part that felt betrayed and devastated, didn’t have that much sympathy after the last seventy years she’d had. 

With no concept of how long or far she’d run, she came to a sudden stop outside of a big Victorian house, almost wincing when she realized where she was. She could feel the magic in the air, it was familiar and she knew this was where she needed to be even if it wasn’t where she _wanted_ to be. 

“I’ve been waiting for you, Elizabeth,” Zelda greeted her, walking down the steps of the porch with an elegant grace Betty had always envied. 

“Hello, Zelda.” 

“Where is your young man?” 

Betty gave her a tight-lipped smile and tried to deflect. “I’m fairly certain he might actually be older than you.” 

Zelda nodded sagely. “Ahh, yes, but he’s had the uncanny ability to keep his looks, has he not?” 

“That he has,” Betty agreed, walking closer, sitting next to Zelda where she’d sat on the porch steps. “He’s always been beautiful.” 

“So have you,” Zelda said, reaching out to take one of Betty’s hands in her own, running a finger over the engraving on the bracelet. “You’re angry.” 

“I am,” Betty started, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath, “furious.” 

“You shouldn’t be.” 

Betty scoffed. “He betrayed-” 

Zelda’s eyes flashed, her grip tightening on Betty’s wrist. “He did no such thing! Every time you both were reborn after your first death and you’d found each other again, he would hunt me down, begging me to figure out a way to fix it. Threatened me once, even.” 

Betty almost laughed at the idea. “Frog?” 

“He deserved it,” Zelda sniffed, tossing her hair over her shoulder. “I turned him back, which is more than I can say for most men.” 

“True.” 

Wrapping an arm around her, Zelda gave Betty’s shoulders a squeeze. “You can be mad, Elizabeth, but he didn’t know. This one is on me.” 

The tears Betty had been fighting since she stopped running broke free, trailing down her cheeks as she cried into Zelda’s shoulder, staining her dress. 

“He asked me,” Zelda told her, touching the bracelet again, “to make an anchor for your soul to keep you here, but you know Forsythe, he’s impulsive. He’s good at solutions but not what it means as a whole.” 

“An anchor?” Betty looked up, confused. “But-” 

“He thought it would keep you alive, and it did, in its own way.” 

Zelda stared out across the yard, eyes unfocused and sad. “I promised your mother I’d keep you alive and I did that rather poorly, didn’t I?” 

“I made my choices,” Betty whispered, laying her head on Zelda’s shoulder. “I loved him so much, I couldn’t imagine a world where he wasn’t in it.” 

“There was a lovely warlock in the next town but no, you had to go and fall for an angel, didn’t you?” 

Betty laughed wetly, wiping her cheeks off. “I could no more control that than we can control the moon.” 

"He couldn’t keep doing it, Elizabeth, he was becoming more and more broken with each passing, so I created the anchor he requested, sentimental boy that he is, but no, I didn’t tell him how it would work,” Zelda told her in a soft voice, more soothing than before. “Though I can’t say for sure if he’d have gone through with it anyway-” 

“He would have,” Betty interrupted, shrugging. “Do you remember the first?” 

“Yes,” Zelda whispered, voice breaking. “First I failed your mother and then I had to listen to Forsythe scream for you as they took you away, torches lit. I should have stopped it-” 

“You couldn’t have, not then, that was the price we paid for the rules they say we broke.” 

“Their rules! Who are they to decide what is right and wrong?” Zelda scoffed, shaking her head. “Foul meddlesome creatures.” 

Betty laughed softly at the look of distaste on Zelda’s face. 

“Elizabeth, I had you turned, I knew the bracelet would keep your soul connected to you after death, so when Forsythe was reborn you could find each other eventually and regain your memories but-” Zelda sighed, twisting to face Betty on the steps. “-here.” 

She’d reached into the pocket of her dress, pulling out a ring and placing it gently into Betty’s palm. 

“What’s this?” 

“It’s for Forsythe.” 

Betty shook her head vehemently. “No, I don’t want to do that to him-” 

“It’s the only way,” Zelda told her gently, closing Betty’s fingers around the ring. “Your magic was sacrificed, as were his wings, there’s no going back now.” 

 

* * *

 

Jughead was on his knees with his head in his hands when he felt the breeze he’d learned to hate more than any other. 

“You do this to yourself, Forsythe.” 

“Jughead.” 

“That’s not your name,” Antoinette said, walking in front of him, casting a shadow over him as she stood in front of the headlights to the Sheriff’s cruiser. 

“It is,” he insisted. “You’re the ones who made sure I’ve had to live with it twice, so use it.” 

“Just the Gods having a bit of fun, no need to be upset about it.” 

“Says the one not called Jughead,” he deadpanned, standing up to narrow his eyes down at her. “What are you here for, Antoinette? Betty isn’t here, so you can’t kill her in front of me to torture me so what do you want?” 

“You’re very clever, you know.” Antoinette crossed her arms over her chest. “To get the witch to turn _her_ into a creature-” 

“I think if you recall, you’ll remember she’s my wife,” Jughead cut in, his tone venomous. 

Antoinette waved him off, as if what he was saying was unimportant. “You traded her fate for yours when you did that, did you know? The Fated Lovers is a tragedy, Forsythe, not a love story.” 

“You and your Gods go too far,” he spat angrily.

“You made a mistake,” she said, her features twisting into something that looked like hurt, “when you made her immortal.” 

Jughead huffed, running a hand through his hair, ignoring Antoinette’s pitying gaze. 

“Jughead,” Antoinette said, insistent, “listen to me. You traded her fate for yours, do you understand?” 

He finally met her eyes. “So I’m the one who dies now?” 

“Yes.” 

“No.” Jughead stood straighter, spine stiff. “I wanted one mortal life with her, just one, and you took her away in the worst way imaginable.” 

“Did you think she would live her mortal life then join you in the heavens?” 

“Yes, because that’s how it should have been-” 

“Devils,” Antoninette started slowly, taking a step closer to him while he stared down his nose at her, not giving an inch, “don’t fly.” 

“I refused to be beholden to the whims of the Gods then, and I refuse now.” 

“You can’t outrun your fate.” 

Jughead smiled wickedly. “Watch me.” 

 

* * *

 

 When he’d returned to his dad’s it was close to dawn, his exhaustion feeling like a weight on his shoulders as he trudged up the stairs to his old bedroom, admitting defeat that Betty wouldn’t be found until she was ready to be. 

Shutting his door quietly behind himself, he almost jumped in shock at seeing Betty sitting on his bed, her knees up under her chin while she quietly watched him, dressed in just the t-shirt she’d stolen from him the previous day.  

“I talked to Zelda,” she said, keeping her voice down. “She told me she did this to me.” 

“I would have, though,” Jughead admits, taking slow steps in her direction, trying to gauge her mood before trying to touch her. “If it meant never having to watch you die again-” 

“And now I get to watch you die?” Betty bit out sharply. “You know that’s how it works, right?”

“I’ve been informed of that, yeah.” Jughead sat on the end of the bed, head down. “You know how you can change that-” 

“You don’t want this, Jughead!” Betty sat up straight, legs crossed with clenched fists in her lap. “I didn’t remember anything-” 

“Because you died before you were turned, not because you became a vampire-” 

“I killed people!” 

“You’ll stop me.” 

“You don’t know that.” 

Jughead turned his head to catch her eye. Reaching out, he grabbed one of her hands in his, slipping his fingers through her own. “I do.” 

“I would have rather died-” 

“So you’ve told me,” Jughead interrupted, letting her go and getting up to stand next to the bed, knowing she was getting ready for a fight. “And I told you-” 

Betty stood up, fire in her eyes. “They called me a monster then, do you remember? And now -now I’m this!” 

“You’re no more a monster than any other human is capable of being,” Jughead said, placing his hands on her upper arms to keep her from running off again. “I would do it again. I would do it a thousand times to never have to see you die again.” 

“I’ve been alone-” 

“You never have to be again,” he promised, pulling her close and laying his cheek on her hair. “I’m sorry I made the choice without you. _For_ you.”

Betty shook her head against his chest. “There should have been a different way.” 

“I looked.” Jughead sighed, wrapping his arms around her even tighter. “After the first time, I started looking, and the best I could hope for was keeping your soul tethered to your body and trusting Zelda.” 

“You trust the woman that turned you into a frog?” 

Jughead huffed. “She told you about that?” 

“Of course. She likes me more than she likes you.” 

“That’s fair.” 

Betty pulled back, wiping her cheeks. “I’m still mad.” 

“You can be mad for forever as long as you’re alive to do it.” 

“I’m not technically alive, Jughead.” 

He shrugged, kissing her forehead. “Semantics.” Tilting her chin up with a finger, he locks eyes with her. “I, for one, think we should be grateful I wasn’t alive in the seventies. Can you imagine me in bell bottoms?” 

Sniffing, Betty tried not to laugh and gave him a mock glare. “Yeah, well, I looked fantastic in them.” 

Groaning, he tugged her into his arms again, pushing his face into the curve of her neck to breathe her in and kissing the soft skin gently. “Don’t say things like that to me, you know how I feel about your ass.” 

Betty scoffed. “Nice try, but I’m still mad at you. I might get Zelda to turn you back into a frog for awhile.” 

“Kinky.” 

“God, you’re annoying this time around,” Betty said, pushing him off of her to sit back on the bed with a glare in his direction. 

“I think you mixed up the words charming and annoying, love,” Jughead informed her, yanking off his shirt and kicking off his jeans and shoes before he scooted her over until she’d made enough room for him to sit next to her. 

“I really didn’t.” 

He wrapped an arm around her shoulder and pulled her into his side as she huffed in annoyance. “You can be mad at me as long as you need to, but I’m not going to let you do it alone.” 

“I want to hate you but I can’t.” 

“That’s comforting.” 

Betty sighed, shifting closer to him. “I never watched you die, Jug. I don’t know that I could have done it even once.” 

“Trust me,” Jughead whispered, voice breaking with the memory, “once was enough.” 

 

* * *

 

**1642**

_He watched as she draped the fabric over the table, adding crystals and candles to it, quietly murmuring her thanks to the Dominion for the harmony of herself with the Earth and the heavens._

_For something the Gods considered so unclean, he thought she was beautiful. It was a traitorous thought, they were forbidden from watching over or accepting thanks from anyone who practiced witchcraft, but he could have sooner stopped the waves than ignore her._

**1643**

_He watched her grief at the sudden loss of both her parents, and he couldn’t help but to ease her pain, showing himself to her though it was strictly forbidden._

_She was fearless in his presence._

**1645**

_He’d started to visit her more than was safe, both of them trying to meet without the ever watchful eye of both their guardians._

_“It’s not safe for you to keep coming here,” Elizabeth had started, looking over her shoulder to make sure they were alone. “If someone sees-”_

_“I don’t care,” he said, cupping her cheeks in his hands and pressing his forehead against hers._

_“They’ll take your wings-”_

_“Let them.”_

_“They’ll do more than take your wings, you silly boy,” Zelda announced, appearing as if from nowhere. “To Fall for a human is treason to them, to Fall for a Witch? It’s a death sentence for you both.”_

_“Why?” Elizabeth beseeched, grabbing him tightly. “The penance-”_

_“Is Falling for a human, my dear child, and you are no human. You’re a witch and they consider us a plague on the righteous.”_

_“How?” Elizabeth asked, her eyes clouded with tears. “We love the Earth and her children the same way they do!”_

_Zelda nodded, reaching out for her. “I know. We don’t make their rules, Elizabeth.” She pulled her into a hug, running a hand over her hair. “The sacrifices you need to make will be painful for each of you.”_

_“Sacrifices?”_

_“His wings. Your magic. You will get one human life to be with each other-”_

_“We’ll do it,” Forsythe said, putting his hand out for Elizabeth to take. “It’s worth it to me.”_

_“Me too,” Elizabeth agreed, taking his hand and stepping to be by his side._

_Zelda closed her eyes in resignation. “Elizabeth, this has to be what you want, this is your magic, the very essence of yourself.”_

_“I love him.”_

_“And you?” Zelda asked Jughead. “Are you willing to sacrifice the heavens?”_

_“I love her.”_

_“Very well. We’ll meet back here in three days time at nightfall.”_

 

* * *

 

_“This is for you,” Zelda told her, pressing the ring into her palm. “Keep it around your neck until it’s time.”_

_“Will it hurt?”_

_“It won’t be pleasant. For either of you.”_

_“I understand.”_

_“You look beautiful, your mother would be so proud of you,” Zelda reassured her, wrapping her into a hug._

_“Of me giving up magic?”_

_“For following your heart.”_

 

* * *

 

  _The ripping almost knocked him to his knees when his wings started to detach as he promised himself to Elizabeth. The silver and white feathers he’d known his whole existence slowly fell to the ground, his eyes never leaving hers as Zelda repeated her blessings over them both._

_Elizabeth’s glowing golden hair dimmed slightly, the shine of her eyes fading as the tears streamed down her face with the absence of her magic. When she’d slid the ring on his finger, he’d cried with her, his happiness outweighing the newly forming scars on his back._

_He’d looked at Zelda oddly enough to make her laugh when she’d handed him a pair of human male breeches, but it had made sense when the ethereal robes that had surrounded him almost turned to ash as the ceremony had finished. The ring on Elizabeth’s own finger gave him the first flashes of what he thought might be human satisfaction, a stronger desire to kiss her than he’d ever felt before overcoming him as he took a step closer to her in the moonlight._

 

* * *

 

**_1646_ **

_He’d screamed himself hoarse, calling for Elizabeth. They’d held him down, tied his hands and feet after he had attacked the intruders, the ones accusing her of terrible crimes, none of which she’d committed._

_No one had been able to interfere, as if the Gods themselves had decreed her punishment, he watched as they walked his beautiful wife to her death, fire following her. Head held high, his last sight of her was her mouthing that she loved him and she’d see him again._

_It had been an inexplicable thing, after, when no one could recall if the witch had even had a family._

 

* * *

 

Betty pulled out the ring Zelda had given her and rolled it between her fingers, playing with it absentmindedly. 

“Is that-” Jughead’s voice startled her out of her thoughts. “-is that mine?” 

Betty nodded, still staring at the ring in her hand. “Zelda gave it to me, for you.” 

“I thought it had been lost.” 

“So did I,” Betty said, grabbing his left hand but stopped short of slipping the ring on his finger. “Do you think there’s a statute of limitations on marriage when you get married hundreds of years ago and also keep dying?” 

Jughead exhaled dramatically. “Are you trying to get out of being my wife? Because I’ll have you know I invoked no take backs.” 

“No take backs? Are you five?” 

“And a half, so it definitely counts.” 

Betty grinned at him and slipped the ring on his finger before laying her head on his shoulder. 

He picked up her hand to press a kiss against her knuckles. “We’ll be okay, and one day you’ll forget why you’re mad at me.” 

“Highly unlikely. Women rarely forget anything, we’re very adept at remembering why men are annoying.” 

“Can I persuade you to let me help you forget?” he asked, rolling her on her back and hovering over her. 

“Got someone in mind?” 

Jughead’s smirk fell off his face and he almost growled into her neck as he bit her gently, making Betty laugh with the way it tickled. 

“Don’t push it.” 

She pushed at his shoulders, still laughing. “I think I have plenty of room to push you. Years of it, even. Say, seventy or so?” 

Jughead groaned. “Fine.” He rolled his hips into hers. “Can I get time off for good behavior?” 

“You think you’re good?” 

“You’re killing me, here,” he said, nipping her collarbone. He kissed the path up her jaw and to her lips, almost melting with the satisfaction of it. “I missed you so much.” 

She leaned forward to give his lower lip a slow suck. “I missed you too.” 

Letting his weight fall a little more on her, he rested his arms on either side of her head as he dipped down to kiss her more fully, the soft touch of her tongue on his sending chills up his spine. 

“It’s been too long.” 

Smiling, she pulled back to look up at him. “It’s always too long.” 

“That’s true, every second-” 

“No. No cheese right now, I’m trying to stay mad-” 

“Mad but horny?” he asked hopefully and sat back on his knees, pulling her legs with him to trail his fingers up her inner thighs. 

“Yeah, you’re definitely a virgin this time around,” Betty joked, rolling her eyes at him. “There is no way any girl fell for that.” 

“Hey, I haven’t been a virgin in hundreds of years and if you’ll recall, you liked my lines just fine back then.” 

“All lines were good ones in the sixteen hundreds,” she shot back and locked her legs around his waist. 

He grabbed her knees and smirked. “Any chance you still have any of those bell bottoms?” 

“Perv,” Betty shot back, narrowing her eyes at him. 

“What?” Jughead raised his eyebrow at her. “Did you listen to ABBA or something? Are you embarrassed of it because you had Farrah hair?” 

“Everyone listened to ABBA, you jerk. And I rocked that hair.” 

He leaned over her, nipping her jaw. “I bet you did.” Jughead slipped his hands up under the hem of her shirt and tugged on it. “Come on, take this off for me.” 

Betty wiggled, letting him pull it off over her head and he tossed it to the floor. He groaned when he saw she wasn’t wearing anything underneath. 

“They still look the same,” he told her, testing the weight of her breasts in his hands as he sat up to look at her. “Feel the same too.” 

“I should hope so,” Betty told him with an unimpressed look. “I’m the one who should be worried, do I need to pretend size doesn’t matter?” 

Glaring at her, he rolled his hips into her again and felt vindicated when her eyes fluttered shut. 

He moved over her and placed sucking kisses against her chest and over the tops of her breasts and across her nipples, flicking his tongue out against them and smiling against her skin when he could hear the moans she tried to keep in. 

Her hands were in his hair as he moved down her body, only stopping to gently bite at her belly button before moving over her hips, gripping her thighs to move his shoulders between them. 

“The real question is, Elizabeth,” he said, letting his fingers slide against her, “do you taste the same?” 

He could hear her breath catch at the first pass of his tongue against her clit. Sucking on it softly, he slipped a finger into her, the wet warmth of her dragging a groan out against her, the vibration causing her legs to jerk. Jughead used his free hand to push her leg to the side, keeping her in place. 

“Stay still,” he murmured to her and slid another finger into her. “Just like that.” 

He was trying to keep himself from rubbing against the bed while listening to her moans fill up the quiet of the room, but it was a losing battle. Her toes were curled into his back and when one of her legs wrapped around his neck to hold him in place, he couldn’t help but smile as he sped up the thrusting of his fingers and rapid pace of his tongue. 

When her back arched and she called his name, her fingers tight in his hair with legs shaking, he slowly helped her come down until she pushed him away. Sitting back on his knees, he looked down at her, satisfied while he ran a hand across his chin. 

“Like that, did you?” 

“Shut up,” she replied even though aftershocks were still visibly running through her. “Come here.” 

He pushed his boxers off over his hips before moving to kick them off onto the floor, a little surprised when she shooed him off when he tried to crawl back over her. She moved him until he was sitting back against the headboard and she was straddling him. 

“This is good,” he said, breathless, face to face with her breasts. 

Betty laughed. “Some things don’t change, I see.” 

“Not when it comes to you, no.” 

His breath caught in his throat when she reached between them and held his cock in place as she slid down over him, her eyes never leaving his. 

 _“Fuck,”_ he swore quietly. 

She rested her head on his forehead as she moved up and down, her nails biting into the skin of his shoulders to hold onto him. When she looked at him again, her eyes were noticeably darker. Jughead could see the pointed tips of her fangs peeking out as she panted while staring at him. One of her hands had come to rest on the pulse point she’d bitten before, the other moved up into his hair, the way he’d seen her do before when she was getting ready to feed. 

“Do you want to?” he asked, tilting his head to the side in offering. 

She shook her head and he could tell she was lying. 

His hands moved to her hips, holding her still for a moment. “Elizabeth, do it if you need to.” 

“I don’t need to,” she said, hips undulating as her pupils dilated further. 

“Then do it because you want to.” 

She bit her lip and stared hard at him while taking a deep breath, probably trying to gauge if he was lying or not. Satisfied with whatever she smelled, she nosed against his jaw and moved down to his neck where he felt her lips press soft kisses on his skin before her teeth edged along the curve and she bit down. 

The moment her fangs pierced his neck, his world burst into color and sensation like nothing he’d ever experienced before. His fingers were digging into her hips and if she was capable of bruising, there would have been evidence of it as he jerked and came inside of her, her thighs tightening against his legs as she shivered against him. He groaned loudly, too loudly, into her hair and wrapped his arms around her back, letting her take what she needed from him. 

He trusted her to know when to stop. 

Betty kept hold of him for a few moments longer before she sat back and met his eyes. Her mouth was tinged a reddish pink, lips swollen with her eyes a magnetic green once more. 

He was panting still when he reached out to push her hair behind her ear. “I love you, Elizabeth. Always.” 

She smiled and pushed the lanky curl of hair that always seemed to hang in his face off his forehead. “I love you too.” A mischievous expression settled onto her features. “Do you want to traumatize Archie?” 

He let out a confused laugh. “What?” 

“We have about twenty seconds before he and Veronica walk in this room so we can run for the bathroom or get him back for calling me names over the last couple weeks.” 

While Jughead kept his memories of his and Archie’s friendship over the last decade and a half, he also had back everything he’d ever experienced with Betty over their lifetimes together. Feeling more defensive of her than he had before, he smiled and grabbed at the blankets on the bed to cover them both. 

“Get your revenge, baby,” he told her, delighting in how wide her smile became. 

She pressed herself against him so nothing but her back was visible and she put her mouth back against his neck, making sure she was being visibly obvious that she was “biting” him. 

Jughead could see his doorknob turning and he was slightly annoyed Archie wasn’t actually going to knock but he prepared himself mentally for his best friend to see Betty’s naked back. 

He almost lost it laughing at Archie’s horrified expression, and he could feel Betty shaking with laughter against him. 

“I told you she was weird, Ronnie. She’s biting him!” Archie exclaimed, spinning around and covering his eyes. 

Veronica raised an eyebrow at them before she turned to Archie, pushing him through the door. “If you think a little biting in the bedroom is weird, Archiekins, we’re going to have major issues.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Get yo' revenge, Betty! Get it. You go, vampire girl. I am so proud of her right now. What an icon. A legend. A something or other. 
> 
> Listen, I have no idea what's going on. I never do tbh so what else is new. I thinkkkkk the next one will be the last one and then onto something else. Unless my dog smothers me in my sleep. 
> 
> He's been acting sort of shady lately. 
> 
> So, if no one hears from me for a few days, you know, ask Maria to tell you what happens in the end of this fic because the dog got me. 
> 
> Anyways, HAVE I TOLD YOU LATELY THAT I LOVE YOU? THAT THERE'S NO ONE ELSE ABOVE YOU? THAT ALL MY BESOS ARE FOR YOU? 
> 
> Oof, that's not part of the song but it should be. Thank you so so so much for you comments and support, it means the world to me. Besos again! 
> 
> As always, you can [tumble](https://thetaoofbetty.tumblr.com/) with me if you want.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello lovelies! 
> 
> Okay, I won't bore you up here so go on, gets to reading. No, no, it's fine. I'll be okay up here all alone.

**_If fate can start, it means it can end_ **

 

“No,” Betty said, pushing Jughead’s hair off of his face, trying to keep the blood out of his eyes. “No, not now, I can’t-” 

“Hey!” Archie yelled from behind her, confused and trying to pull her away from Jughead. “We need to call an ambulance, stop trying to move him!” 

Pulling herself out of Archie’s reach, she tightened her grip on Jughead. “Don’t touch me!” 

“Betty,” Jughead whispered, reaching for her face with bloodied fingers, “you and me always, right?” 

 

* * *

 

**Four Days Earlier**

“You know,” Jughead told her, buttoning up his jeans, “he’s not going to look me in the eye for at least a week now.” 

“Good,” Betty replied while pulling the stolen t-shirt he’d taken off back over her head before she slipped his boxers up her legs to let them sit loosely over her hips. 

“Are you not going to get dressed?” 

She shrugged, tying her hair into a loose ponytail. “I’m dressed enough. They’re the ones here before reasonable daytime hours.” 

“Ah, so there’s still a little bit of my fifties girl stuck in there, is there?” 

“It’s just good manners, Jughead.” 

“Like the time you almost shot me for crossing your land?” 

Betty glared at him, unmoved. “I would have been justified.” 

“You accused me of stealing your stupid cow.” 

“Leave her out of this!” 

Jughead laughed and grabbed her around the waist, bringing her against his chest. “I won you over though, didn’t I?” 

“Barely,” Betty scoffed. 

Kissing her temple, he let her go to grab a shirt out of his packed bag. “Come on, let’s see what they wanted before-” 

“Breakfast, and also Veronica is making Archie uncomfortable by making lewd comments about your dad’s pictures from when he was younger.” 

Eyebrows raised, he reached for her hand and led her out of the bedroom without a response. Finding Archie and Veronica in the kitchen, he pulled out a chair for Betty at the table before sitting next to her, gesturing for Archie to start talking. 

“So,” Archie started, avoiding eye contact with everyone, “we wanted to know if you wanted to go get some breakfast at Pop’s and if you say you ate already, I am never talking to you again.” 

Jughead almost choked as Veronica laughed loudly. 

“I only implied he might say that, Archie,” Veronica said, patting Archie consolingly on the back. 

“I’m not even hungry anymore,” Archie whined, running a hand over his face. 

“Neither is Jughead,” Betty piped up with a wink, smirking at Veronica. 

“Oh god,” Archie wailed while Jughead bit back a laugh, trying to keep from flushing a bright red. 

Jughead cleared his throat and pretended the exchange had never happened. “Pop’s you said, Arch?” 

“Yeah, but if anyone orders any sausages, I’m leaving,” Archie replied, ignoring Veronica and Betty’s laughter as he leaned forward until his forehead was resting on the kitchen island. 

 

* * *

 

“Call an ambulance, Ronnie,” Archie yelled, reaching for Betty once more to pull her away from Jughead. “You can’t move him, Betty, it’ll make it worse-” 

She cut him off with a hiss and her eyes flashed as she let go of Jughead just long enough to push Archie away, sending him flying through the air before he landed with a thump on the side of the road. 

Veronica’s scream for Archie in the background felt like white noise as she moved back to Jughead, holding onto him, listening to the beat of his heart as it started to slow down. 

“You need to hold on,” Betty begged, moving until she was kneeling over him, pressing kisses to his cheeks as his eyelids fluttered. “I can’t do anything with Archie and Veronica watching, I think she might have called the police already.” 

“We don’t have much time,” Jughead told her and grabbed her hand, his grip slippery from the blood. “She’s gonna show soon, she always does.” 

“She’s got terrible timing,” Betty said, trying to give him a brave smile through her tears. 

Jughead groaned as he tried not to laugh. “Betty, if you don’t do it soon, I’ll end up losing my memories again-” 

“No!” Betty cried, pushing her face into his neck, the red tinged tears mixing with the blood already covering his neck. 

“Don’t let me forget you for even a second. Not again.” 

 

* * *

 

**Three Days Earlier**

“Betty!” Jughead yelled, jumping down the rest of the stairs when he saw that she had his dad pressed up against the door, her arm across his throat. “What are you doing?” 

His dad’s eyes were starting to dilate as Betty stared at him, ignoring Jughead’s calls for her to stop. 

“Hey,” Jughead said, panting lightly as he cupped her cheek and turned her face to his. “What’s going on?” 

“He thinks I should leave you alone,” Betty told him, her lip quivering. Her eyes were glassy and her grip on FP was starting to shake as she stared up at him. “That I’m an “unhealthy fixation” for you.” 

Jughead pulled her away from his dad gently and wrapped his arms around her. “It’s okay, he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.” 

“I think I do!” FP exclaimed, rubbing his throat where Betty had pushed her arm into him. “Jughead, come on, she’s obviously playing some game with you. Vampires-” 

“I thought you believed me!” 

“If I had argued, would you have listened to me?” FP asked, shaking his head. “You were set on doing what you wanted.” 

Jughead’s eyes went wide in disbelief. “Why would I make any of that up?” 

“Because you’re carrying on with someone who looks like a dead girl you were obsessed with at sixteen, boy, you need your head looked at!” 

“Dead?” Betty asked and looked between them. “I’m obviously not completely dead.” 

FP ran a hand over his face, giving Jughead a sympathetic look. “Son, come on, I know the girl is pretty-” 

“I feel like he’s about to insult me,” Betty whispered to him, arms crossed over her chest. 

“-but she’s messing with you to get what she wants.” 

Jughead laughed. “Are you serious? What could she want from me? My vast fortune?” 

“You said she steals!” 

“You said I steal?” Betty asked, turning to look up at him with narrowed eyes. “Seriously?” 

“I love you, baby, but you do,” Jughead said, raising an eyebrow at her. “It’s endearing, though, I promise.” 

Betty shrugged and spun back around to look at FP. “That’s fair.” 

“I wasn’t lying, Dad,” Jughead sighed out, running his hand through his hair, the beanie he’d been attached to when he before his memories had come back packed in his duffle bag. “You even said weird stuff happens in Greendale-” 

“I can get Zelda to turn him into a frog if you want,” Betty interrupted, her voice taking on an overly sweet tone. The kind that happened right before a woman got pissed off beyond her capacity for patience. 

They’d always struggled with their relationships with their parents after their memories were restored. Jughead had been lucky this time, his dad had tried and he’d always love and respect him for it but not picking Betty over him wasn’t even an option. 

“Dad, I wasn’t lying. Don’t you think it was a little weird that a girl her size could have kept you up against the door with minimal effort? Were you starting to feel a little like you were willing to do whatever she wanted?” 

FP hardened his gaze at Betty before he pinched his nose in frustration. “I wasn’t going to hurt some girl, Jug.” 

“Some girl?” Betty scoffed and broke from Jughead’s grip,and was in front of FP before he realized she’d moved and had him back up against the door, fangs bared at him. “I’m not _some girl_.” 

Jughead could see his dad visibly swallow, his nerves plain on his face. 

“Jesus, you weren’t lying, were you?” 

“No,” Betty bit out, letting FP go and moving back next to Jughead. “I’m going to go see Veronica, you can explain this to him if you want.” 

Jughead nodded and kissed the side of her head. Gesturing for his dad to sit on the sofa, he watched Betty as FP moved out of her way, giving her a wide berth as she left and winced as the door slammed behind her. She was definitely going to be mad about that for a while. 

“Come on, let me explain it to you and if you piss her off again, she really might get you turned into a frog,” Jughead said, shoulders slumped as he flopped down on the cushions, deciding FP only needed to know the barest of explanations of how Betty was turned, not their entire history. “I don’t recommend that, by that way, it’s way grosser than you think it’ll be.” 

 

* * *

 

Betty felt the change in the air the second before Antoinette arrived. She’d never seen her but she knew who she was based on Jughead’s descriptions. 

Rising to her feet, she stood in front of Jughead’s body. “No.” 

Antoinette laughed. “No? I don’t think you understand how it works.” 

“Oh, I think I do,” Betty spat venomously. “Your gods kill me, you show up and ask Forsythe if he’s repented yet, willing to forsake me, to forsake our love for each other, and when he says no you take his soul and body, playing with time until you feel we should be reborn to be pawns in a game you invented out of spite.” 

“A game? It’s a punishment, witch,” Anotionette hissed, her wings shaking behind her in her anger. 

“A punishment that is at your whim!” 

“Mine?” Antoinette asked, incredulous. “No, if I had my way, he’d never be reborn again-” 

“To punish me, then?” 

“You’re a foul thing, Elizabeth,” Antoinette told her, eyes hard. “And Forsythe had the audacity to make you a creature-” 

“To beat you at your own games,” Betty interrupted. “I know how the story goes.” 

“Is this what you wanted for him? To take your place? To watch him die, never knowing when you’re going to see him again?” 

Betty shook her head, looking down at the blood covering her arms. “No.” She stiffened, standing up straight and staring at Antoinette. “You can’t have him.” 

“It’s too late, Elizabeth, Forsythe is coming home with me.” 

“What,” Betty heard behind her, the voice escalating with each word, “in the actual _fuck_ is going on?!” 

 

* * *

 

**Two Days Earlier**

“What do you think she’ll do then, Forsythe? Let you die?” Zelda scoffed at him, the heat of her glare burning through him. 

“She thinks she’s a monster, she doesn’t want me to live the life she’s been given,” Jughead said with a defeated sigh. 

“Her light has always been so bright, don’t you think?” 

Jughead tilted his head in confusion, waiting for Zelda to elaborate. 

“Even when she gave up her magic for you, her love shined through, lighting up a room.” 

“What does that mean?” 

“That her biggest fault has always been her unconditional love of you, Forsythe. Be lucky she’s not me, I’d let you rot.” 

Jughead laughed before he could stop himself. “Thanks, I think.” 

Zelda patted him on the shoulder as she stood to pass him, leaving him on the porch. “Have faith in her, she may not want to turn you now, but you never know when it might change.” 

 

* * *

 

Betty spun around at the sound of Veronica’s voice. She’s forgotten they weren’t alone the moment Antoinette had appeared. 

“Veronica!” Betty exclaimed, seeing Veronica standing over where Archie was still unconscious. 

“Bettykins,” Veronica’s overly calm voice stated, “what is going on? And why do I feel like we’re about to get in a girl fight with a chick with wings?” 

Biting back a frustrated sob, Betty was at a loss for words.  

“Let me see if I have this right -you are definitely not human and something about souls and rebirth and Jughead is dead?” Veronica asked. 

At the last part, Betty lost her composure, a sob breaking through as she turned to see Jughead lying on the ground, motionless. She felt Veronica’s arms around her and she put her face in her hands, uncaring of the blood staining them as she cried. 

“Who do you think you are?” Veronica asked Antoinette. “Can’t you see they love each other? That they belong together?” 

Antoinette stared at Veronica with disdain. “Move, human.” 

“Move?” Veronica tightened her grip on Betty. “Who the hell do you think you are?” 

Keeping silent, Antoinette went to push past Betty to get to Jughead when Betty reached out, grabbing her wing in a bruising grip. 

“You don’t touch him,” Betty growled, pulling on the wing, flinging Antoinette back. “Not ever again.” 

“You dare to touch me?” Antoinette gasped out, wincing as she shook out her wings. “To lay a hand on me?” 

Betty could see Veronica kneel next to Jughead, trying to find a pulse and putting herself in front of him. 

“We’re done with you and your games. And your gods,” Betty said, walking closer to Antoinette. “After today, you’ll forget you know our names.” 

“Forsythe is dead, Elizabeth,” Antoinette reminded her, a smug smile on her face. “The cycle lives on.” 

“Your arrogance will be your end,” Betty informed her and watched the confusion flit across Antoinette’s face. “I didn’t know angels had heartbeats.” 

“And?” 

Betty smirked. “It means you can bleed.”

 

* * *

 

**One Day Earlier**

“You better be quiet,” he murmured into her neck, nipping at it. He hoisted her up, her legs wrapped around his waist as his fingers bit into her inner thighs, holding her against his body. 

“No one can hear us,” she said, her head falling back against the bedroom door. 

“You sure about that?” Jughead asked, sliding his hand further against her leg to move the cotton of her panties to the side, fingers trailing against her slit. 

“Very sure,” Betty promised, reaching between them to free his cock from his boxers, adjusting herself until he’d slipped into her, a moan escaping the both of them at the contact. 

Her arms wrapped around his neck as she bounced on him, his head buried in her neck while he told her how much he loved her, how much he loved fucking her, how wonderful she was. She bit his earlobe gently, sucking it between her lips, and he felt her smile against his cheek when a shiver shot through him. 

“Fuck, you’re tight,” he groaned against her collarbone, pushing her further against the door to keep her up. “Every time.” 

Her hand reaching between them to rub at her clit while he watched and listened to her moan out his name, making his knees weak. He just hoped he lasted longer than she did. 

 

* * *

 

“Betty-” Veronica started, and Betty could hear her heart pounding, her fear rolling off of her in waves, “-Betty, we might have a problem-” 

“You should leave,” Betty told Antoinette, taking a step closer to her. 

“Not until I have what I came for,” Antoinette replied, throwing her shoulders back in defiance. 

Antoinette’s wing was stained with Jughead’s blood and the sight of it angered Betty even further, her fists clenched and eyes narrowed. 

“Betty!” Veronica called once more, her worry and fear palpable as her voice sounded further and further away, the click of her heels backing away loud in Betty’s ears. “I really think-” 

“You’ll have to go through me first,” Betty threatened, taking a step closer. She could hear movement behind her but her concentration stopped her from making sure Veronica and Archie were alright. There was no way she was going to let anyone touch Jughead. 

Antoinette’s eyes widened and her mouth opened but before she got a word out, Betty felt something move past her, a blur of blacks and grays was all she saw before it slammed into Antoinette, knocking her to the ground. 

“Jughead!” Betty yelled, moving to pull him off of Antoinette. “Stop!” 

Grabbing his shoulders, she struggled to get a grip on him, yanking on his shirt and yelling his name, trying to break him out of his single minded need to feed. When she finally knocked him off of Antoinette, they both fell to the side, hitting the asphalt in a tangle of limbs. 

“Go,” Betty warned Antoinette, who was panting and holding onto her throat, eyes wide in fear at Jughead who was still snarling in her direction. “Go now, you have no power here anymore.” 

Betty felt more than saw her leave in a flash that seemed brighter than the sun in the midday light. Holding onto Jughead, she fell back, wrapping her arms around him to keep him steady. She wasn’t sure how aware he was but she tilted her head to the side, giving him access before he broke free and accidentally hurt either Archie or Veronica. 

She let her eyes close as she felt his newly formed fangs pierce her neck, sucking on the blood running through her veins. Not being fully human anymore meant what she was doing was dangerous and she’d never actually let another vampire bite her, though she knew it could be done. Over the years, she’d tried to see how long she could go without feeding, to see if she could die without blood, but she’d never gotten very far, the blood lust making her choices for her before long. 

Betty could hear Veronica and Archie yelling as her eyes rolled back, feeling weaker by the second. She tried to warn them, to tell them to run before it was too late but she wasn’t sure if the words were coming out or not. 

The pressure on her neck disappeared and she fought to open her eyes, hearing Jughead’s voice calling for her. 

“Betty!” 

 

* * *

 

**That Morning**

“You packed and ready to go?” FP asked them, gesturing to their duffle bags near the front door. 

“Yup,” Jughead answered, reaching for his coffee mug. “We’re going to leave after lunch.” 

“You just want Pop’s one last time,” FP said with a smile, not quite meeting his eyes. 

“True,” Jughead agreed easily, leaning back into the chair he was sitting in, wrapping his arm around Betty. 

“Can I talk to you?” FP stood up, gesturing to the living room. “Privately?” 

Sitting his mug down, Jughead shrugged and debated telling his dad that Betty could hear them from anywhere in the house but chose not to before he got up and followed FP out of the kitchen. 

“What are you gonna do now?” 

Jughead furrowed his eyebrows. “What do you mean?” 

“With her? She can’t die, Jug, don’t you think that’s a problem?” 

“That the woman I love more than anything can’t die? I’d say it’s a good thing if we’re being honest.” 

FP sighed heavily, his head falling forward for a moment before he looked back up at him. “But you can. You’re on a different wavelength-” 

“For now-” 

“For now?!” 

Jughead nodded. “You don’t have to like it but it’s going to happen eventually.” 

“What about a family? Marriage?” 

“So, there may have been a few things I left out,” Jughead started with a cringe, knowing now he wasn’t going to get out of a full explanation. “You’ll see why it has to be this way once I’m done, okay?” 

FP huffed. “I doubt it.” 

“Just remember that you’re my dad and I love you no matter what, even if you don’t understand my choices.” 

“I love you too, kid.” 

 

* * *

 

“Betty!” Jughead cried, patting her cheeks to get her to open her eyes. “Hey, stay with me.” 

He looked down and he was covered in blood, his own,. The drive, the accident, it was all a little fuzzy in his head. Hearing Archie calling for him, he turned around, seeing Archie limping towards him. 

“Come on, baby, open your eyes for me,” Jughead pleaded, cradling her face in his hands.

Debating ways to get her to bite him and worried he’d somehow done something permanent to her, he flinched in surprise when he felt Archie’s hand on his shoulder, the sudden sound of hearts beating overwhelming his senses, the sheer volume of it making him wince. 

“Let me,” he heard Veronica say as she hit her knees on the ground, pulling her hair to the side. 

“No, Ronnie,” Archie said, pulling her away from them. 

“No!” Veronica exclaimed defiantly, yanking herself out of his grasp. “She needs this-” 

“I know,” Archie interrupted, readjusting his hold on Veronica, “let me. I’m bigger than you, I can give more.” 

Veronica went limp in Archie’s grip and let him move her to the side. “Fine. I don’t even know if that’s scientifically accurate but I don’t care right now, just help her.” 

Archie reached to take Betty from Jughead and Jughead instinctively growled at him, holding her tighter to him. 

“Jug, it’s okay,” Archie said softly, extending his wrist out toward Betty’s mouth slowly. 

Giving him an apologetic nod, Jughead held up Betty’s head, encouraging her to bite Archie, holding his arm against her lips. 

Jughead heard Archie’s heart rate increase with each pull Betty made, a pink flush climbing her cheeks making her look more like the Betty they knew. 

When Archie started to sway to the side, Jughead broke the connection between them, pulling her into his arms, so he could push her hair back off of her face, waiting for her to open her eyes. 

“Come on,” he said, vaguely aware that Veronica was fussing over Archie, calling him a hero, checking him over and patting ineffectively at the bite on his wrist. “Let me see those pretty eyes.” 

“Jug?” Betty murmured weakly, her hands fluttering up towards his cheeks, making a featherlight contact before they dropped back down. 

“Hi,” he said with a smile, leaning forward to kiss her forehead. 

“We did it,” she told him, returning his smile. “We have forever now.” 

“Forever? With you?” Jughead pulled her close and pressed a kiss against her lips. “Sign me up.” 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FOREVER, Y'ALL! 
> 
> Oh my goooooodnessssssss, it's done. I am probably always going to have a soft spot for this fic and I owe it all to you guys! You guys who were with me from the beginning and those who gave it a shot even if you thought you wouldn't like it. I LOVE YOU ALL FOR IT! 
> 
> I need to go repress all the emotions trying to attack me but I thank you all for being here with me, especially Maria. And SunlitGarden who gave me her opinion when needed. Even when I was complaining. I can't forget jandjsalmon, who listened to me when plot points were being tricky. You guys are the best! 
> 
> So, I was thinking I'd like to do a short little tropefest roommate nonsense next to be totally absurd after the sort of heavy emotions this had at times. Thoughts? Opinions? Or ignore me, I accept it all. 
> 
> Please accept my besos in lieu of hugs because that's all I can offer over the internet, hah. Besos to you all! Sloppy besos, even. I don't judge. 
> 
> As always, you can [tumble](https://thetaoofbetty.tumblr.com/) with me if you want.


End file.
